MIPTV 2012: Canadian multiplatform concepts in the spotlight at Cannes

Montréal, March 27, 2012 – Out in force at MIPTV 2012 with representatives of 61 companies, Canada’s multiscreen industry is offering unforgettable experiences for worldwide audiences by focusing on innovation in creativity, business models, technologies and viewer relations. Several Canadian productions screening at MIPTV, April 1-4, 2012, have also been invited by the Canada Media Fund to showcase at MIPCube, a new forum that will bring together the architects of the future of TV at the Gare Maritime on March 30 and 31.

Among the Canadian highlights at MIPTV, Canada, with four nominations, is one of seven countries competing for the International Digital Emmy Awards, to be announced on April 1. The nominees are: in the Digital Program: Fiction category, Endgame Interactive: Facebook Episode (Secret Location, Shaw Media, Thunderbird Films); Murdoch Mysteries: The Curse of the Lost Pharaohs (Smokebomb Entertainment, Shaftesbury Films, City TV); Temps Mort/Time Out (Radio-Canada.ca, Productions Babel); and, in the Digital Program: Non-Fiction category, Bar Code (National Film Board of Canada, Arte France). In addition, Micho Marquis-Rose, the creator of zieuter.tv,has been chosen for Reed Midem’s New Producers to Watch initiative, which spotlights emerging production talent.

“Canadian production is known for a determination to push the envelope, a keen sense of entertainment, and interactive links with audiences that directly contribute to the richness of the experience,” said Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada, which manages the Canada Pavilion at MIPTV. “Canadian creators, producers and broadcasters, and the coproducers they work with, deploy ingenuity to bring their stories and characters to life on all available conventional and digital platforms, from TV to Webseries, games, YouTube, Facebook and tablets. This way, they reach audiences with diverse interests and of all ages and cultures.”

Here are a few examples of those productions:

Endgame Interactive: Facebook Episode
Production: Secret Location, Shaw Media, Thunderbird Films
Nominated for Best Digital Program: Fiction, International Digital Emmy Awards, at MIPTV

• Online episode based on the hit drama series Endgame, in which an agoraphobic former world chess champion uses his analytic skills to solve crimes.
• Ties in to fans’ Facebook accounts to crack the mysteries.
• A fascinating combination of virtual reality (VR), alternate reality game (ARG) and augmented reality (AR).

Ice Pilots NWT and Arctic Air
Production: Omni Film Productions Limited
Supported by the Canada Media Fund

• Ice Pilots NWT: A documentary series for History Television that has sold to 30 countries, features the wild adventures of renegade Arctic airline Buffalo Airways and the determined crew that risks everything to haul passengers and cargo in the unforgiving North.
• Ice Pilots digital media components include an interactive game and Website, a mobile version of the Website and 35,000 Facebook fans. The book adaptation made the best-seller list one week after its release, in January 2012.
• Ice Pilots has made a cultural impact around the world. It is featured in the Polar Land section at Legoland Denmark, where they have an “Ice Pilots Flight School”.
• Ice Pilots earned the second-highest rating ever on Quest (Discovery, UK), and captured a 28% primetime market share on NGC Australia.
• CBC drama series Arctic Air,starring international film and television star Adam Beach, is about a fast-growing airline and the unconventional family that runs it. Arctic Air has beenpresold across continental Europe.

Picnicface Playground
Production: Breakthrough Entertainment, Little Guy Games
Supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (Interactive Digital Media Fund)

• Stars the Halifax comedy troupe that garnered millions of YouTube views before delighting fans on television (Comedy Network), with a movie (Roller Town, a hit at the Slamdance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah) and even a book.
• This game is a mobile app for iOS that enables fans to cast themselves and friends in hilarious, absurd sketches and then share them.
• Launch on Apple App Store in August 2012.

Totally Amp’d
Production: Shaftesbury Big Break Inc., XMG Studio
Supported by the Canada Media Fund

• The first original mobile app series for kids and tweens. This interactive ecosystem, launched on iPad, iPhone, iTouch, is designed for tweens, a niche largely overlooked by the mobile market.
• It is attracting the attention of broadcasters and other mobile app providers, as consumers seek new ways to combine TV show content and the growing mobile market.
• The content focus is entertainment, fame and performance. Along the lines of Glee, the 10-episode seriesrevolves around five teens dreaming of becoming the next pop sensation.

Zieuter.tv
Production: Radio-Canada, La Presse Télé
Supported by the Canada Media Fund

• A Webseries born from an original collaboration between Web designers, game developers, filmmakers and community managers.
• A whole new way of telling a story, managing time and involving users.
• Users visit the same point in time from 12 different angles at a restaurant where a corpse has just been discovered. Eavesdropping on the characters’ conversations, each one about a social vice, allows them to piece together the facts and solve the mystery.
• Winner of the Prix Gémeaux for Best Original Program or Series Produced for Digital Media – All Categories. Creator Micho Marquis-Rose has been chosen for Reed Midem’s New Producers to Watch initiative, at MIPTV.

Invitation to meet the Canadian industry at MIPTV and MIPCube
Come meet Canadian industry players at the Canada Pavilion at MIPTV (Palais des Festivals, Level 0, Stand 00.01, + 33 (0)4.92.99.83.14) or at the Snack & Screen session on innovative digital media projects, hosted by the Canada Media Fund at MIPCube, March 30, at 12:30.

About Telefilm Canada
Telefilm is dedicated to the cultural, commercial and industrial success of Canada’s audiovisual industry. Through its various funding and promotion programs, Telefilm supports dynamic companies and creative talent here at home and around the world. Telefilm also administers the programs of the Canada Media Fund. Visit telefilm.ca and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/telefilm_canada.

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Media inquiries:
Douglas Chow, Manager, External Communications
1-800-567-0890 or 514-283-0838, ext. 2225
douglas.chow@telefilm.ca