Major Welsh film series goes commercial

An innovative Welsh digital media company, responsible for a major series of online movies, plan to take their web-film ventures commercial in the New Year.
New Media Magic, sister company to leading Japanese and specialist video/DVD duplication firm Artsmagic, based in Ebbw Vale, South Wales, have produced WorldWideWales.tv as an online guide to the Principality, and approval has been received from the Welsh Assembly Government for the site as an information resource.
Now, as its period of public funding ends, the series will be available to subscribers only from January 2004, and further movies are envisaged, shot using professional DV Cam and edited in Avid to produce short broadcast-quality videos suitable for broadband transmission, then frame grabbed and edited in Flash 5 Macromedia to create narrowband-compatible versions.
The resulting web experience of Welsh towns, scenic locations, places and people of interest, narrow gauge railways and even golf courses, places Wales at the forefront of digital media film technology already.
However funding constraints have limited the areas the New Media Magic team has been allowed to film, and with the company’s shift from public-private funded venture to purely commercial enterprise it is expected the site will develop to encompass the whole of Wales.
New Media Magic’s managing director Gerry Malir is highly enthusiastic. “To be able to take WorldWideWales to the next stage is something about which we are very proud”, he said.
“We are delighted to be able to announce that we are taking this step”.
(GB)