Going Digital Enables Worldwide Animation Collaboration

BKN New Media is a global animation company based in London and Barcelona engaged in the distribution and marketing of animated children’s television programmes and the marketing of related consumer products in all forms.

BKN New Media own the Intellectual Property Rights Huminah Huminah animation in Nova Scotia and qualify as to many successful global brands including the Zorro- Canadian Content as well as Illusion Studios in Argentina. Generation Z series as well as films such as Jungle Book- All three studios will produce using Toon Boom software Rikki Tikki Tavi to the Rescue and Ali Baba and the Forty and BKN New Media will deliver in English, French, German, Thieves- the Lost Scimitar of Arabia. Its new productions Latin Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, include a second season of Zorro- Generation Z and Joshua Greek and Classic Arabic. Blake: the Agency, both of which will be co-produced with 1 2 3

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BKN New Media is committed to providing quality entertainment to children around the world. Heading this prestigious Company, the team includes Allen Bohbot1, Chairman & CEO; Rick Ungar2, Executive producer; Nicola Andrews3, Managing Director, English and German speaking markets, Canada, Russia, CIS, Middle East and Turkey; Laura Tapias4, Managing Director Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets, French, Italian, Greek markets; Sam Edwards5, Post Production Manager; and, Paco Ureña6, Production Executive. “Until 2007, BKN New Media was a purely traditional studio outsourcing the animation production to China and the Philippines. The Company then decided to upgrade our facilities in London and Barcelona, equipping them with the latest computers, Wacom Cintiq 21U, high-speed servers and internet lines in order to keep the production in Europe. As far as technology goes, following a thorough analysis, we decided to adopt the Toon Boom pipeline as it not only delivers high quality animation on time and budget but also enables us to deliver our projects in high definition and other formats, as required” explained Allen Bohbot, Chairman and CEO.

“We have chosen to keep the traditional style but going completely paperless. Harmony is perfectly suited to handle the nature and scope of our projects, which makes it perfect for our needs”, concluded Allen.

Recently, BKN New Media in concert with Cartoon One in Italy delivered Stone Age, a 52 episodes of 11 minutes each, all produced using the Toon Boom Harmony pipeline. Laura Tapias, Managing Director for BKN New Media in Spain states “We are very proud to have produced this series in Spain, not just the pre-production but also, the 100% of the animation process included. We are sure the kids will like the rich stories and characters in high definition.”

Moving on to the next projects, BKN New Media has embarked into the production of Joshua Blake: The Agency (40 x 22’), an animated TV show following the adventures of action-hero Joshua Blake (the show takes multiple paths - from The Bourne Trilogy, to James Bond and last year’s technological blockbuster: Eagle Eye) and on another HD project titled Zorro: Generation Z (26 x 22’), which is a sequel series of the original and highly successful Zorro- “With Joshua Blake: The Agency we have made all the art Generation Z series but this time using Harmony. Both and design within Harmony. This has been possible, not productions are scheduled to start at the beginning of only thanks to the maturity of the BKN New Media team 2010 fore delivery in 2011. in the Toon Boom universe, but also thanks to the new and efficient Drawing Tools Toon Boom has developed; in Paco Ureña comments on how the Harmony pipeline is set addition, the new management module for the 3D elements up: “We use Harmony as a base, firmly supported from import in Harmony has been crucial for the carrying out pre-production by Storyboard Pro and the Wacom Cintiq of incredibly spectacular action and special effects scenes, 21U as well as a drawing desk for the artists. These are which is really appealing for our projects. Some scenes the three mainstays of our work system. The evolution combine cut-out animation, 2D paperless and 3D.” of the new Harmony tools allows us not only to carry out setting up, animation, composition and rendering but “Our workflow totally revolves around Harmony, Storyboard also, we have made our artists evolve to carry out the art Pro and the Wacom Cintiq 21U and Harmony has now an designs directly within Harmony using their Wacom Cintiq outstanding role in the art and design development as 21U. In other words, the designs start and develop in the well as in the animation and composition of our episodes. Harmony environment, this way we make the interaction Storyboard Pro is crucial to tell our stories efficiently and with Storyboard Pro better and avoid potential distortions relate them with the data base managing all the information of the designs in the vectorization, making the library and flow.” rigging management processes very dynamic. This has been a great evolution with respect to our series Stone “The main solutions and improvements that the Toon Age, in which we were still working all the creative and Boom environment has supplied to our work organization design process externally to Toon Boom, which made it have essentially been the chance to perform an integral hard and slow to adapt all the art to be used in Harmony management of our art production tasks, as well as the and Storyboard Pro, especially if we estimate a pace of an data management. Besides, it helps us carry out all the episode per week.” tasks under a single universe of programmes, which makes the internal management and the coordination and tasks management placed in external teams much easier, “To us, Storyboard Pro combined with the Wacom Cintiq making all the files compatible and achieving a “common 21U brings significant added value to the Harmony language” for all of us. This makes the communication in pipeline. Harmony is an exceptional programme, and co-productions in which there are several teams working in with Storyboard Pro, this solution becomes unique in several countries easier.” the market. This is something our team learned from the very beginning and the results came in a few weeks. The “Either from the artistic point of view or the information pleasant interface and the efficient Toon Boom team were flow, the set of Toon Boom programmes makes possible a really of help. The adaptation time and learning curve coordination in real time at all levels (art and data), always have been considerably reduced, which has allowed us under the outlook of an HD quality. For the first time, the to integrate experienced artists almost immediately and production management data (lists, database) and the art without making a strong effort.” (design, storyboard, and animation scenes) are very closely linked with the artists and the production department. This BKN New Media is certainly a premier animation studio really improves the vision the team has concerning the with high standards, which deserves the red carpet for its status of the production and helps focussing the effort to efficiency, quality and reliability.• achieve the best art results within the schedule.”