Maniac Films Shortlisted For Media Innovation Awards

North Devon based Maniac Films Ltd has been shortlisted for two projects at this years Media Innovation Awards. The Awards, now in their second year, celebrate the innovative use of screen based media across the South West of England. The 2008 competition launched in October and any member of a South West based cluster group or their clients could enter. There are 14 categories including photographic, screen graphics, independent film and music for screen. Winners of the awards will be announced at a glittering gala awards dinner being held on Friday 14 March in the Holiday Inn, Plymouth.
Maniac Films have been nominated in the DVD or CD Rom category for the Think Tank project - an interactive DVD created in partnership with the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon and Means of Production. The Think Tank uses a mix of live action, 2d and 3d animation with a Sci-fi theme to encourage active learning in schools and introduces objects from the Museums archives into the classroom.
"The Think Tank was a great project to be involved in," said Mark Brindle, Director of Maniac Films. "I love Sci-fi and had lots of fun building the alien costume and filming all the live action sequences. I'm very pleased we've been nominated again this year."
The second award nomination for Maniac films is in the mobile communications category for the Visualise project - a 2 year collaboration between the University of Bristol, Provision Communications, 3C Research, BT, U4EA, Util4, ISC , Inmarsat and Maniac Films with funding from the Technology Strategy Board. Visualise is all about enhancing the spectator experience at large scale events by delivering personalised content to PDAs and mobile phones using Wifi and emerging WiMax technology coupled with GPS tracking and error resilient H.264 video encoding.
"We've been trialling the Visualise Technology at several sporting events including the World Rally Championships in Wales in 2006 and 2007 and its been very well received." said Mark. "The project is wrapping up now but the exploitation of the technology is ongoing and we have a demonstration event planned for the 18th march at the Watershed in Bristol."
To find out more about the awards visit:
www.mediainnovationawards.com
(DS)