The Pixel Market 12/13 Oct

The Cross-Media Forum 11-14 October 2011
in association with the BFI London Film Festival

The Pixel Market is a co-production market with a difference, bringing together over 100 international financiers, commissioners and decision-makers from film, broadcast, publishing, advertising, mobile, tech and interactive and dedicated to financing cross-media projects from around the world.

For this second edition we presented 25 cross-media projects to the international marketplace.

The Pixel Pitch on the first day of the market (12 October) is a public event where nine of the project teams presented In Competition to compete for ARTE’s £6,000 Pixel Pitch prize. The award went to Love & Engineering being produced by Kaarle Aho of Making Movies Oy (FIN) and directed by Tonislav Hristov (BUL).  Each team was given 10 minutes to pitch (including visual presentations) with a further 20 minutes for comments and feedback from a hand-picked roundtable jury.

The market culminated in a day of one-to-one business meetings on 13 October for all 25 teams with potential financers, investors and partners.

Participating companies at The Pixel Market 2011 included Aardman | Aramid Capital | Artangel | ARTE France| BBC | BBH | beActive | BFI | Blind Spot Pics | Canada Media Fund | CAPA | Childseye | Cinemart | CNC | Coproduction Office | Disney | Dogwoof | Egmont Press | FaberNovel | France Télévisions | Grand Central | Inside Xbox | Krempelwood | Manning Gottlieb OMD | Medea | MediaCom | Microsoft | nDreams | NFB Canada | Orange | Penguin | Pure Grass Films| Red Kingdom | RTL | SBS | ShineVu | Six to Start | Skating Panda | Somethin’ Else | Starlight Runner| Telefilm Canada | The company P | Tigerlily Films | Turner | Vice | Wallimage CrossMedia | Warp | Workbook Project | ZDF with more to be announced!

PROJECTS IN COMPETITION

1. Cloud Chamber (DEN) – Fiction: online | mobile | TV
Production Company:
Windelov/Lassen Interactive Participants: Vibeke Windelov, Producer; Christian Fonnesbech, Director
A science drama inspired by space. Players collaborate to uncover the story of a young scientist who has risked her sanity and betrayed her father in order to save humanity from itself.

2. The First Zombie (CAN/UK) – Fiction: online | book | film
Production Company:
Awesome Media & Entertainment Participant: Jeff Norton, Producer
A lonely zombie, fresh from the grave, struggles to get back the family life he once took for granted. Sometimes even the living dead deserve a second chance.

3. Jezabel (FR) – Fiction: TV | online | mobile | radio | print | live event
Production Company:
Bridges Participants: Eric Pellegrin, Producer; Rémy Reboullet, Transmedia Producer
A series about a 19-year old student who posts a song on YouTube – the song soon becomes a big hit. After a producer offers to launch her career, Jezabel will be torn between two worlds: show business in Paris and the decadent student parties in her city, Lille. How will she handle her fame? A story about growing up, falling in love, finding your way.

4. Lost and Sound [working title] (UK) – Non-fiction: TV | online | app
Production Company:
Animal Monday Participants: Kat Mansoor, Producer; Lindsey Dryden, Writer/Director
An exhilarating and moving creative experience about the great human love affair with music, through the prism of deafness. It weaves a character-driven narrative – following three people’s re- discovery of music after deafness – with an extraordinary adventure through the science of sound, revealing how music reaches us through the ears and brain when neither work ordinarily.

5. Love & Engineering [working title] (FIN) – Non-fiction: film | TV | online | mobile
Production Company:
Making Movies Oy Participants: Kaarle Aho, Producer; Tonislav Hristov, Writer/Director
Digital geeks looking for analogue love. One claims to have hacked love, can he help lonely engineers find real happiness?

6. My Little Songs (FR) – Non-fiction: TV | online | apps | books | games
Production Company:
Tralalere Participants: Deborah Elalouf, Producer; Sophie de Quatrebarbes, Cross-Media Publisher
Tim, aged 7, has discovered a mysterious magic piano. No sooner does he play, than a variety of characters pop up from the piano to create animated and interactive musical cartoons. Nursery rhymes initiated by Tim will be the starting point of adventures for Tim as well as the viewer/player. An opportunity for young children to discover foreign languages through a fun trip!

7. Process: Cause & Affect (CAN) – Non-fiction: online | film | installation | mobile
Production Company:
Secret Location Participants: C J Hervey, Producer; James Milward, Executive Producer
An interactive documentary and transmedia project that profiles groundbreaking artists who create beautiful works of art using computer code.

8. Tomorrow We Disappear (USA) – Non-fiction: film | Condition ONE | interactive | online | installation
Production Company:
Rebel Yell Participant: Jimmy Goldblum, Producer/Interactive Director
Since 1978 Delhi’s magicians, puppeteers and acrobats have called the tinsel slum, the Kathputli Colony, home. Last year the government issued relocation permits to the colony residents; the slum is to be bulldozed, cleared for development. Experience the last remnants of a culture borne out of folk traditions and moulded by poverty.

9. We R Democracy (BEL) – Non-fiction: online | apps | games
Production Companies: Not So Crazy! Productions, Up Creatives, Inflammable Productions Participants: Matthieu Lietaert, Co-Creator, Co-Director, Co-Producer; Jamie Baillu, Co-Producer
Have you ever wanted to shape tomorrow’s globalisation? Here is your chance: Become an online lobbyist in Europe! Get to know the hidden part of democracy, meet key protagonists and build your own lobby network. Play a game-like experience that’s also influencing the real world around you!

ADDITIONAL MARKET PROJECTS

10. 100 (UK) – Non-fiction: feature film | online | apps | TV | live events
Production Company:
Magnified Pictures Participant: Jessica Levick, Producer
A hypnotic study of the art of sprinting, this startling documentary – made in partnership with adidas – reveals the hopes and struggles of London’s grassroots athletes on the eve of the 2012 Olympics.

11. The Ark Experiment (AUT) – Non-fiction: feature film | online
Production Company:
Golden Girls Filmproduktion & Filmservices Participant: Michael Seeber, Producer 
The end is near, but don’t worry we will guide you through it!

12. The Awra Amba Story – Utopia in Ethiopia (FIN/UK) – Non-fiction: online | mobile | broadcast | live events
Production Company:
Write This Down Productions Participant: Paulina Tervo, Producer/Director
A multi-platform, multimedia project about a utopian village in Ethiopia including an interactive 360° web documentary, a feature-length film and an interactive exhibition.

13. The Cat Time Stories (CRO) – Fiction: TV series | interactive | app | online
Production Company:
My Magical Thoughts & Alt F4-Bulaja Publishing Participant: Helena Bulaja, Producer
The Cat Time Stories relates the everyday adventures and experiences of cats and their friends, through blending the worlds of 33 stories about the adventures and experiences of slightly humanized, but thoroughly feline characters. They hunt for treasure, displease their human “masters”, go shopping, worry about their appearance, avoid dogs, get stuck in the top branches of a tree and do everything which takes up the busy agenda of a cat’s day. One of them even discovers he can fly…

14. Conspicuous (USA) – Fiction: FB apps incorporating stills | text | news
Production Company:
Murmur Participant: Mike Knowlton, Producer
A suburban mum discovers her husband is having an affair. In the aftermath, she becomes a private detective. It’s Weeds meets artist Sophie Calle.

15. Facelessbook (ITA) – Non-fiction: feature film | book | TV | installation | online | print | podcast
Production Company:
La Sarraz Pictures Participant: Sergio Basso, Director
A cross-media platform conceived as a role-playing game: a serious game to understand what it means to be on the run, to identify with a refugee, in the world of today. The social network of those that are faceless.

16. Fort McMoney (CAN) – Non-fiction: online | gaming | TV | print | mobile
Production Company:
Toxa Participant: Philippe Lamarre, Producer
A web documentary with gaming. A unique social experience. Welcome to Fort McMoney, the biggest power project in the world.

17. LoveTrips (AUT/POL) – Non-fiction: feature film | TV | online | mobile/tablet | print
Production Company:
Le Groupe Soleil Participant: Filip Antoni Malinowski, Producer; Carlo Pisani,
LoveTrips
tells the stories of people that have to travel to keep their love alive.

18. Mirages (BEL) – Non-fiction: TV | online | mobile | iPad | live events
Production Company:
Black Moon Participant: Patric Jean, Producer/Director
Science and scepticism require that we look for natural and empirical explanations for all phenomena. Mirages is designed as a transmedia documentary experience which investigates how we often convince ourselves to believe and overlook the facts (of any kind).

19. Pas de Deux (SWE) – Fiction: film | book | live event | online/social networks | radio
Production Company:
Kore Film and Transmedia Participant: Anna Nevander
A devoted opera singer lives a consuming passion with an inconstant photographer and looks for divine love in her friendship with a young priest, who ends up trying to rape her.

20. The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted (FR) Non-fiction: live event | online platforms | feature film
Production Company:
Sciapode Participant: Emilie Blezat, Producer
TRWNBT
investigates how far the internet can go to found a new civil society, how the power of social media influences social change. An educational project, a think/do tank, a dialogue platform and a visual representation of the way the internet empowers citizens and articulates a rapidly changing world.

21. Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library (CAN) – Fiction: online/social networks | TV/VoD | mobile/tablet | books | live events
Production Company:
Jill Golick Enterprises (Story2.OH) Participants: Jill Golick, Showrunner/Producer; Susan Nation, Producer
A cross-media, live-action, comedy-mystery series designed especially to engage young audiences growing up in the digital generation. Stubborn, smart, determined and a little too quick to jump to conclusions, 15-year old Ruby makes a lot of unfortunate choices in her pursuit of truth, justice and, well… personal curiosity.

22. Seasons Project (FR) – Non-fiction: TV | online | games | smartphone app
Production Company:
Camera Lucida Productions Participant: Chloé Jarry, Artistic Producer
Seasons Project launches a large citizen investigation into the evolution of the seasons in Europe.

23. Shankaboot – Unlocking The Power of Social Media (LEB) – Fiction: online | social networks | mobile apps
Production Company:
Batoota Films Participant: Toni Oyry, Head of Operations
Fresh from dodging disaster on the streets of Beirut, Suleiman causes havoc across the Middle East when he convinces four friends in different Arab countries to launch a bogus political campaign on Facebook. but, when their virtual revolution spills over into the real world, the armchair freedom-fighters are forced to face the consequences.

24. Swandown (UK) – Non-fiction: feature film | installation | live events | TV | online
Production Company: Fly Film Participant: Kate Ogborn, Producer
Swandown
is a documentary, travelogue and odyssey of Olympian ambition. A poetic film diary about encounter and culture. It is also an endurance test and pedal-marathon.

25. Unspeak (NETH) Fiction & non-fiction: online HTML5 cloud & integrated social media | interactive
Production Company: Submarine Participant: Geert van de Wetering, Co-Director
Unspeak
is a style of political language that smuggles persuasion into description by renaming politically sensitive subjects. A radical and at times poetic collage of found footage, media sound bites and voice over, the series unveils the mechanisms behind Unspeak and encourages the viewer to listen closely, as well as editing and distributing their own Unspeak clips.

The Pixel Market is supported by the EU Media Programme. Additional support from BFI, Skillset Film Skills Fund, ARTE, Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund, Orange, TorinoFilmLab and BAFTA.