KIDS FIRST! News

Big Bad Boo Productions has joined the KIDS FIRST! team. With offices in LA, NY and Vancouver, Big Bad Boo is an animation company providing production services and production services for partners around the world. Some of its popular titles include Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Bat Man, Being Ian and Yvonne of the Yukon.

Little Airplane Productions is holding a unique workshop February 13-15 led by accomplished preschool TV veterans on creating a hit preschool series. Classes include Pitching, Writing, Research, Design, Music, Directing, Legal, Licensing, and a notable panel of children’s television network executives. Josh Selig tells us a bit about the workshop.

CP:  What’s the story behind Little Airplane Academy? How did it begin?

JS:  The Little Airplane Academy came about spontaneously. We were getting so many requests from preschool TV show creators for advice on pitching, producing, business affairs, writing and research that we decided it would make sense to create a course that brought together all of these different areas. Originally we offered the course one night per week for six weeks but we found that many of our prospective attendees were from out of town and simply couldn’t stay for six weeks. So we consolidated the course into a three-day intensive that we now offer twice a year.

CP:  How long have you been running these workshops?

JS:  It’s been just over five years now.

CP:  Please tell me one of your greatest success stories from someone who attended the workshop.

JS:  We had one student named Jim Chong who attended the Academy about three years ago. Afterwards he approached me and asked if Little Airplane would consider going into development with him to make a show that would take on serious issues like homelessness, the environment and extinction. He was a great salesperson and I’m happy to report that just last month we finished production on a new short-form animated series called, “Tobi!” that will launch on Unicef’s International Day of Children’s Broadcasting on Treehouse TV in Canada and Nickelodeon in Australia. This show would never have happened without Jim’s initial spark.

CP:  What are you offering this year that’s different from the past?

JS:  We always try to change up our speakers at the Academy and this winter we’ll be joined by J.J. Johnson who runs Sinking Ship Entertainment and is the creator of such amazing shows as “This Is Daniel Cook,” “Are We There Yet?” and, most recently, “Dino Dan.”  J.J. is, quite simply, the most talented director of children in the TV industry.

CP:  Is there anything you would like to add?

JS:  This past year we took The Little Airplane Academy on the road and offered our course in London and in Doha, Qatar. We hope to do more such trips this year and we’re currently in discussions with a broadcaster in Norway to bring the Academy there to help train the local indies.
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This producer of KIDS FIRST! titles such as The Big Airshow  is winning awards with his title, “Flying the Secret Sky.” The Story of the RAF Ferry Command has recently been honored with awards at a number of prestigious film festivals.  The program most recently won Best Feature Documentary at CinegearExpo in Los Angeles, where it was screened at Paramount Studios.

The film also won the Golden Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival, and the Special Jury Award at the Worldfest Houston Independent International Film Festival.  At the Las Vegas Festival, there were over 2000 entries from 20 countries, and at Worldfest Houston there were over 4500 category entries from 37 countries.

Earlier this year, “Flying the Secret Sky” won the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle for feature-length documentary.

Flying the Secret Sky tells a story of passionate risk-taking, of young men braving dangerous flights in primitive aircraft.  These “cowboys of the air” are forgotten heroes of the war, who flew without guns and embodied an improvisational spirit that was key to Allied victory.  Their story includes the American civilian chosen to fly Winston Churchill to secret wartime meetings, during the darkest days of WW II.

The documentary special was filmed in HD on-location in the US, Canada and the UK. It has aired nationally on PBS.  WGBH – Boston is the Television distributor, and PBS Video distributes a feature-length version on DVD, which is available now.  The program is also distributed  worldwide by PBS International.

The story is told by the veteran aviators themselves, including Air Commodore Taffy Powell, Kirk Kerkorian, and Bill VanDerKloot, the American civilian pilot who flew Winston Churchill during the war.  Included is never-before-seen home movie footage of Churchill in the American-built B-24 that safely delivered him to vital war conferences and secret meetings.   Also included is rare footage of Ferry Command aircraft and crews from archives around the world, as well as original footage and CGI.

Before the U.S entered the War, most of the Ferry Command pilots were American civilians who pioneered the global air routes we use today.  Theirs is one of the great unknown stories of the war and of aviation history.

For more information go to www.flyingthesecretsky.com.

In response to the phenomenally successful first round of qubopics premieres, qubo, the TV and online entertainment service for children and families, will again select user-generated short animated films to debut on national TV.   Between now and April 30, 2009, aspiring young filmmakers can create mini animated movies at qubo.com using the innovative storytelling web application called ZIMMER TWINS.  Fifteen films will be selected by qubo to be professionally adapted into fully animated mini movies and screened on national TV this summer on qubo Channel as well as on qubo’s broadcast blocks on NBC, ION Television and Telemundo.

Launched on qubo.com in the fall of 2007, the Zimmer Twins, Edgar and Eva, are animated characters featured in interactive cartoons that kids can create from scratch, modify and share with their friends in a rich, safe web environment.  The ZIMMER TWINS section on qubo.com includes storytelling tools, pre-made animated clips and simple editing instructions that tap into kids’ inherent love of stories.  The clips and storytelling prompts explore classic kid themes like science, animals, magic and adventure.  The animation interface is designed around the basic elements of sentence structure, and reinforces reading, grammar, and writing techniques. After creating their stories, users can post and share their creations and even vote for their favorite user-created submissions online.  In 2007, the ZIMMER TWINS won the International Interactive Emmy® Award.

Last fall, nearly 25,000 children logged in to qubo.com to create nearly 50,000 qubopic ZIMMER TWINS films.  Qubo selected twelve stellar user-generated animations to be adapted into professionally animated films, converting them into high-resolution video with broadcast quality color, music and sound effects.  Qubo also enlisted actors to record the character voices and narration created by the filmmakers in their text bubble script. The qubopics were broadcast on qubo Channel and on qubo’s broadcast blocks between December 2008 and February 2009.

            Since the first round of qubopic ZIMMER TWINS film began premiering on qubo, the number of films and users has virtually doubled. An additional 66,000 ZIMMER TWINS films have been created on qubo.com in the past few months with more than 110,000 original user-generated animated films now posted on qubo’s site.  The number of registered users has more than doubled since December to reach more than 53,000!   Beyond driving a huge influx of  traffic to qubo.com, another measure of the qubopic initiative’s success are the feature stories that were garnered for the twelve young filmmakers among their local media.

“We were thrilled with the response to our first round of qubopic premieres and can’t think of a better way to honor and thank our viewers than by launching a second effort,” said  Rick Rodriguez, president and general manager, qubo.  “We are proud to showcase the creativity of these talented children on our air. The ZIMMER TWINS helps reinforce qubo’s mission of engaging children’s minds while promoting reading and literacy.”      ZIMMER TWINS is created by zinc Roe design, a company that specializes in advanced flash development and new media projects for children and youth. The property is licensed to qubo by Bejuba! Entertainment Inc.