Channeling Creativity Towards Infi nity Toon Boom takes great pride in developing technologies that enable anyone to express their ideas. When customer feedback praises how comfortable they feel with the products, they’re thrilled to focus on what matters—expressing themselves visually. As our modern lifestyle revolves so intensely around technology, Toon Boom strives to provide the best creative experience possible for all, on both desktops and tablets. While the team is globetrotting the world, the company moved to a new location, right in the Plateau area of Montreal. The Plateau is one of the most vibrant and dynamic districts with an abundance of multicultural entrepreneurs and businesses. We look forward to welcoming you here! TRADE SHOWS Toon Boom remains rooted in the fi eld, with speaking front, after attending Rio Content Market 2013 (Febru- opportunities in Canada and road trips planned to Asia, ary 20–22), Cartoon Movie (March 6–8), and AQUOPS as well as Eastern and Western Europe. Joan Vogele- (March 26–28), the team will attend MIPTV (Booth C-109) sang was a guest speaker at the National Capital India in Cannes, France (April 8–11), ExpoPixel in Bologna, Italy Forum in Ottawa and participated at the Doing Business (April 15–17), and eLearning Africa in Windhoek, Namibia in India seminar at HEC Montreal. On the industry event (May 29–31, 2013). We hope to see you soon! AWARDS On February 2, 2013, the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, granted the Ub Iwerks Award for the Toon Boom Pipeline at the 40th Annual Annie Awards™. As part of the juried awards category, the Ub Iwerks Award recognizes the technical advancements that make a signifi cant impact on the art or industry of anima- tion, enabling freelancers and studios to collaborate on large productions. The gala event gave the Toon Boom team a wonder- ful opportunity to mingle and enjoy the moment with its customers and friends in the animation industry. From left to right: Diedrich Bader (presenter), Francisco Del Cueto, Marisa Labrador, Joan Vogelesang, Lilly Vogelesang, Karina Bessoudo toonboom.com/professionals and Robert Dancik. This issue’s cover courtesy of BENT Image Lab Toon Boom Animation Inc. 4200 St.Laurent Blvd, Suite 1020 Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2W 2R2 +1 514 278 8666 toonboom.com A Corus® Entertainment Inc. Company Printed in Canada 2 Toon Boom News SPRING 2013 In View With Larry King Focuses On 21st Century Education Featuring Toon Boom Aired on Discovery Channel on January 28, 2013, the In View with Larry King report on 21st century education illustrated the great benefi ts of using Toon Boom’s creative technology in the classroom. As a test case, Toon Boom chose Bluffton Elementary School, South Caro- lina, for their students’ impressive achievements in a very short time, right after implementing the Flip Boom line into their core curriculum. Indeed, during the fi rst year of implementation, this innovative approach translated into an increase of up to 15% in overall marks throughout the core curriculum, maintaining a much higher performance than the state level. There was also an over 40% increase in science, 36% in math, 12% in social studies, and 26% in writing amongst African-American students. Integrating the arts into education goes far beyond teaching creative skills; it amplifi es students’ learning experience and opens their horizon to become whatever they aspire to be. During the 2013 Oscars ceremony, First Lady Michelle Obama clearly stated that message which positions Toon Boom’s unique offerings for education as a natural companion to reach this goal. Watch all videos at toonboom.com/bluffton EDUCATION 2013 started off with two major announcements related to Toon Boom’s dedication to education. First, Toon Boom has recently joined one of ICTC’s youth and education initiative programs, the Arts Schools Network (ASN) in Focus on IT (FIT). At a time when youth unemployment order to collaboratively promote the is high, FIT provides the necessary building blocks for an benefi ts of using arts as a medium of innovative learning experience and encourages students communication to teach core curriculum to acquire 21st century skills in business, technology, and while developing students’ creativity. communications while completing their secondary school During the Spring of 2013, Toon Boom diploma. hosted a series of free 45-minute webinars on Animating Meeting the FIT standards is a testament of Toon Boom the Core and The Power of Digital Storytelling. Toon Boom Studio’s signifi cant pedagogic impact not only in Canada, will also attend ASN’s Annual Conference in New York in but also in the United States and beyond. October 2103. Their community of art leaders, schools, ICTC President and CEO Namir and organizations from around the world is very open to Anani, commented, “It is through the using creative technologies to teach all subjects, engage educational innovation of organizations, their students, and stimulate their interests. such as Toon Boom, that our Cana- dian students have access to fi rst-class artsschoolsnetwork.org curriculum that prepares Canadians for the ICT jobs of the future. Toon Boom Studio engages Second, Canada’s Information and Communications students in a meaningful way, exposing them to the Technology Council (ICTC) has recognized Toon Boom possibility of working in the interactive media fi eld, and Studio and its curriculum as one of the best vehicles to teach preparing them for the workforce through instilling critical 21st century business and technology skills to Canadian business and technology skills in them.” s t u d e n t s . T o o n B o o m h a s b e e n a p p r o v e d a s a n o f fi c i a l e d u c a - This great accomplishment will be carried over all of tional resource and curriculum to support the learning of Toon Boom’s educational initiatives worldwide. leading-edge skills among Canadian students through ictc-ctic.ca Proud recipient of: Emmy-Award Technology Toon Boom News SPRING 2013 3 TECHNOLOGY NEWS: PROFESSIONALS From Mind to Media with Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 4 Following its crowning with a 2012 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award, Toon Boom Storyboard Pro has leaped forward with a new version that effi ciently and elegantly caters to live-action, gaming, and animation studios alike. • Use Storyboard Pro • Take advantage of to plan live action Storyboard Pro’s projects, camera 3D toolset to plan angles, action, scene multiplane scenes, order, and script integrate 3D integration for televi- objects, and create sion or feature fi lm basic animation for production advanced animatics • Create and draw on • Plan animated proj- pixel-based bitmap ects, from shorts to layers television and fi lm projects, making use of the advanced • Create storyboards drawing tools, layer for games, planning animation, camera workfl ows, and cut animation, and script scenes integration • Use the new pixel- • Export from based colour picker, Storyboard Pro to and save colours in Animate, Animate the palette for reuse Pro, Harmony, or FBX for 2D, 3D, and mixed media • Export your project projects from Storyboard Pro to Premiere, Final • Create custom Cut Pro, or Avid for bitmap-style brushes animatics and live action projects, and to PDF for print Watch the demo video and try it now! toonboom.com/storyboardpro 4 Toon Boom News SPRING 2013 TOON BOOM STAR This section is dedicated to Toon Boom employees. In each issue, we will introduce you to the people behind the tech- nology and put a face to the voice you may have spoken to. Vladyslav Pronin has been part of Toon Boom’s Web Marketing team since November 2011. He takes care of email marketing, paid search programs, affi liate market- ing, online ad placement, content marketing as well as web analytics. Targeting multiple channels, Vlad also manages the weekly campaigns, which include promo- tions, upcoming events, announcements, social media contests and advertising and electronic newsletters. To bring quality traffi c to the website, he regularly conducts keyword research for organic and paid search. Keeping Toon Boom’s electronic communications fresh and effec- tive is one of Vlad’s key goals. Subscription, engagement, and conversion form the basis of all the programs he over- sees and delivers. Recently, he worked on migrating the affi liate program to a new platform to establish a better fl ow of communication with affi liates and to keep them aware of latest sales, products and content updates. Vlad is a graduate of McGill University with a Diploma in Infor- mation Technology and Internet Business. Before joining Toon Boom, he worked for Atelier ID on brand building and online program mandates for technology companies, in particular, related to military simulation and ERP soft- ware. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Vlad worked in fi lm production and advertising at Gulliver Film for six years, offering production services throughout Europe. Then, he moved to New York where he worked in fashion and photography for two years. On a personal note, Vlad nurtures two passions: the fi rst one is music. Trained as a classical pianist, he is now producing electronic music. Vlad has extensively read about academic and electronic dance music history, its social impact and its culmination in rave revolution of the late 80s. His other passion is classical European cinema and conceptual fi lms featuring directors, such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, to name a few. Quite a nice mix of personal interests and technology background! Toon Boom News SPRING 2013 5 6 Toon Boom News SPRING 2013 INDUSTRY TIPS Image courtesy of the Toon Boom Multimedia and Content Creation Team Making the Most of Script Notes by Donna Lisa For all scriptwriters, including myself, a completed to have several readers, trusted readers, read the material.