In terms of Ahimsa Media, it was a year that saw much growth in the company in a positive way, in which Lori and I really were able to make some informed decisions on the direction we wanted to take the company.  It was also a very busy year for the company, in which we:

• Built the social media strategy around a number of television series;
• Managed the digital storytelling, digital audience building and social networking for 6 TV Series and Films;
• Wrote successful funding applications for clients;
• Taught at 3 Post-Secondary Institution across Canada, including a grad school lab;
• Spoke around the World at film festivals and travel conferences on the digital space;
• Launched a new transmedia travel property, Roamancing, with Emme Rogers; and
• Sat on the Advisory Board for Merging Media and the Adhoc Advisory Board for a new Digital Program at a Post-Secondary Institution.

It even ended personally with 2 marriage proposals in 2-days, but then I guess that’s Egypt for you.

As we head into 2012, we look forward to exciting new challenges, growing as speakers around the world, building in the travel industry in addition to the fun we have with the film and television world, and of course, a little Roamancing (before long we shall have this word in everyones vocabulary, as really who doesn’t want to roamance).

Happy New Year everyone!  Wishing you a year of love, health, happiness and a whole of fun, wherever your adventures end up taking you.

With love and laughter from,

Erica, Lori and the rest of the Ahimsa Media gang

Kino and her cat, "Mister"

Kino Zhao is a 3rd-year double major in philosophy and psychology at UBC, with strong interests in social psychology, storytelling and travel. She is an avid blogger and has lived in five cities so far, beginning with Beijing and currently resides – for now – in Vancouver. Restless for new experiences and full of wanderlust, Kino enjoys hopping on the bus in new cities and going where the wind blows her. She tries – without much success, she says – to convince others how important and interesting philosophy really is. Kino’s new companion is her recently acquired car, whom she affectionately calls May.

Kelly Lui

Kelly Lui is an English Literature major at UBC considering a minor in Sociology or Creative Writing. She had her appetite  for poetry whetted this year by Milton and Marvell. She loves getting into the psychology of fairy tale characters and superheroes, and re-telling the stories with a psychological twist. She is currently working on a story about superheroes, which she hopes to turn into a graphic novel with a friend. She is a big fan of the Canucks, and anything made with potatoes. She lived in Hong Kong until she was fifteen, has been living in Vancouver since grade 10, and, like Kino, is very well-traveled.

AhimsaMedia is fortunate to have these two creatives on board for the summer. We look forward to featuring their voices on our upcoming projects. A warm welcome to Kino and Kelly!

Happy Canada Day!

Paperny has a couple of exciting opportunities for the filmmaking community coming up, that we wanted to highlight:

Opportunities for Television Writers and Story Editors

The deadline is fast approaching for this posting.  If you have experience as a story editor or writer on Doc. Series or Doc Soap genre programs and are available to work in Vancouver, then don’t delay, get your CV and list of references in.  All the details on who Paperny is looking for can be found on Media Job Search Canada.  The application deadline is Friday February 25th, 2011.

So You Think You Can Make TV? Contest

Paperny has just launched a pretty cool opportunity for young Canadian filmmakers aged 19-30.  Basically, they are challenging young filmmakers to have fun showing off their creativity and skill by creating a 2-minute or less trailer for a lifestyle or factual series.  The Prize?  $3000 and a one month unpaid internship at Paperny Films in Vancouver.  For all the details, check out Paperny’s contest page and be sure to get your submission in by the entry deadline on April 15, 2011.

Grace Lynn Kung, Richard Yearwood and the cast of InSecurity up next, after The Rick Mercer Report

For those of you who don’t know Richard personally, he is an incredibly talented man with an even bigger heart.  It’s why we love him.  He keeps us laughing and on our toes, especially with his repertoire of accents on the phone.  My favourite has got to be the time a little old lady called me up looking for her doctor’s office, only to discover it was Richard.  This InSecurity File on Richard and N’udu pegs Richard to a T.

Now if that doesn’t make you just love and adore Richard and his alias N’udu, then I’m sure his Bomb Primer will.

Needless to say InSecurity is a comedy and spoof on serious spy and crime drama shows. Best described, in my mind, in the Postmedia News:

if James Bond were Mr. Bean ~ Sheri Levine

You can follow along with the InSecurity antics of Benjamin N’udu and his fellow NISA Agents on their website, facebook or through their twitter feeds:

• @NISA_Nudu
• @NISA_Jojokwan
• @NISA_Claude
• @NISA_Burt
• @NISA_Peter
• @NISA_Alex
• @InSecurityTV

Now if you buggered up the whole green Christmas thing, no worries, just use the words of Mark’s niece, Emma (not to be confused with Emme – this kids got way more talent), as an inspiration for a socially conscious New Year. Either that or go get a glass of wine and go back to the bath bubbles.

Oh and if Emma made you feel worse for wear at the beginning of your New Year, don’t fret, this should put the kid in perspective:

Happy New Year!

Erica and Lori captured on camera by Jeremy Lim, enjoying a goofy moment.

This year’s shoot was even more delightful than usual, as we were fortunate enough to shoot at Burnaby Village Museum, which is an absolutely magical place.  For two storytellers, this was a wonderful present to the senses as we were surrounded by rich stories from the history of BC .  Talk about inspirational!

If you haven’t been, you must go.  Burnaby Village Museum is a living history museum, with historic interpretors dressed in period clothing spinning tales of BC’s history.  Having worked in such environments in my teens and twenties, I can tell you I have discerning eye and am not easily impressed when it comes to interpretive sites.  Burnaby Village Museum impresses me.  It is a place of magic.

To experience a bit of the magic for yourself you can visit the Museum from noon until 8 pm each day, up until January 2nd, 2011.  Who knows you may even see Rudolph.  He was after all created there.

Burnaby Artist Denver Gillen's Illustration of Rudolph.

After that the Museum doesn’t reopen until May 2011, except for special event openings.  Hoping they host their scavenger hunt again in February and March.

Our latest delve into character creation has been with the Shaw Rocket Fund.  They are already known throughout Canada as a champion and funder of children’s, youth and family television programs. However, much of their exceptional research into youth, media and technology was unknown.  This year also saw changes in their annual Rocket Prize judging to include any entry’s digital content, in addition to the TV show.  This set the stage for the Fund themselves to enter the digital space and begin participating in both interactivity and convergence.  Enter Shawn and Shawnee Rockett.

Shawnee enjoying herself at the beach.

Shawn playing it cool

We built this delectable duo and have raised them to the stage of passing the reigns back to the Shaw Rocket Fund, who will now guide the cousins on their future path.  To accompany our new friends, we also introduced interactive feeds for the company itself.  In a time when convergence is becoming a crucial key to industry success, the CMF creates an experimental funding stream and broadcasters are learning to navigate the digital space, character driven online narrative has helped place the Shaw Rocket Fund amongst some of today’s broadcast industry innovators.  Despite still being only a few months old, the digital world is beginning to embrace Shawn and Shawnee.  So here they are:

The Characters:
Shawn and Shawnee Rockett are cousins. They were both born a few years apart, but on the same day of the year, their great grandfather’s birthday – hence their names.  They are both named after their Great Grandfather, Shawn Rockett.  And yes, their pops, whom are brothers had a bit of a spat over this, but both are terribly stubborn and he was both of their favourite grandfather.  The cousins, on the other hand, are the best of friends, and although they tease each other incessantly, they have gone into business together and love working together.  Their company is a Canadian Production House focused on creating children’s and youth television.

Shawn Rockett

Shawn Rockett

In his late twenties, Shawn is still young at heart, a personality trait often reflected his work where he focuses on youth programming.  He loves his music, bickering with Shawnee and pushing life to the extreme.  He considers himself a bit of a Casanova, much to Shawnee’s amusement.  Shawn also loves being at the cutting edge of convergence and keeps an eye out for new and exciting technology.

Shawnee Rockett

Shawnee Rockett

Shawnee is a couple of years younger and places more focus on children’s and tween TV.  She’s a lover of everything Disney, her cats and and is a bit of a giant kid at heart.  She still loves to climb trees and splash in puddles in her bright red wellies.  Quirky would definitely be the word for her. She loves her folk music.  Yes, she still watches Saturday morning cartoons.  She already is hooked online, chatting with other characters and youth programmers like Seth on Survival and Ruby Skye PI

We loved developing these two, and are sure the Shaw Rocket Fund will equally enjoy creating their voices…

…as for us onto the next character!

Liz has been selected to be one of Canada’s first Mob!lers!  Samsung Canada picked her and 29 other 20-somethings living in Canada to take part in a competition with their new Android Galaxy S Vibrant Smartphones. Liz and her Team Vansung will duel it out against five other teams in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver for cash and prizes, including a trip to Korea, in 4 challenges designed to experiment with transmedia with their Galaxy Smartphones.

Before the fun started, Samsung set the guys a mini challenge in Toronto which Liz’s Team Vansung won.

Mohammed Hassan-Ali

Here are Liz and her teammates:

Mohammed Hassan-Ali - @skysurfer64

Desired Superpower: To change the weather, so everyday he can avoid ever getting caught in those Vancouver downpours.

In Real Life: Grad Student studying Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology

Gyslain Lalonde

Gyslain Lalonde

Desired Superpower: Batman Wannabe

In Real Life: Server and reality TV talent

Chris McGuire

Chris McGuire @chrisonhismac

Desired Superpower: To be untouchable, yet imperceptible.

In Real Life: Web & Mobile Developer

Peter Verge

Peter Verge @peterverge

Desired Superpower: Snooping on Other’s Text Messages (a fly on the cell, if you will)

In Real Life: All Round Personality, MC and Broadcast Journalist in the making

Liz Kearsley

Liz Kearsley @LizKearsley

Desired Superpower: Information Osmosis (not surprising, as we see her similarities with an amoeba)

In Real Life: PhotoJournalist

Please help us to cheer them on in their last 4 competitions by keeping an eye on the Samsung Mobile Canada facebook page.  Go Vansung Go!

My friend Alison Mah and I figured out the concept for the video, and she filmed and edited the clip. She did such a great job of it that she inspired me to try my own hand at video-editing. Alyzee, my fellow Ahimsa Media intern, and I shot a whole bunch of footage with the intention of making a fun tribute video for our teen-friendly character, Shea. As this was a video ostensibly made by a teen with the target audience of other teens, and also because Shea is a fictional character, it was important not to show too much of my face in the footage. This was a challenge, but I think it actually added to the accessibility of the video in the end. Here is the video:

This post is of necessity not going to be a step-by-step guide about how to manually edit videos, as there are myriad video-editing programs out there, and I am by no means an expert on any of them. However I did learn some things in the process that I wish someone had shared with me:

1) Getting timing exactly right the first time IS important. Little gaps, or strange transitions make for awkward interruptions in the video that really are noticeable. Make sure to be as exact as possible about transitions as you go through your footage. You really, really don’t want to go back and fix every transition. Believe me.

2) Play around, both in the shooting and editing process! Lots of my favourite moments in Shea’s video came about by chance or whim. I had actually finished editing the clips together before I discovered that I could play around with contrast and colour in iMovie. I then went through and played with each separate clip’s colour and contrast until I was happy with them. The colours are definitely my favourite part of the video, and give it a whimsical vibe.

3) If you are making a music video montage like we did, look for a song that matches what you want to say in the video, but try not to make it too literal. If the song mentions eagles, and you show a shot of an eagle flying, it might be a little too contrived. Try to be unobtrusively quirky and unexpected in your images, no matter the subject matter. Everyone appreciates a clever image/lyric/music match-up.

4) Make sure to name and tag your video appropriately. The most prevalent part of the name should be to credit the musician. For example, we called Shea’s video “Hannah Georgas – The Beat Stuff tribute,” after the artist and title of the song we made the montage around. The video is yours, but the music is the musician’s. Credit them!

5) Most of all, have fun. If you’re making a video-montage, what better time is there to play around with effects, timing, and images? With modern technology, everyone can be a passable film-maker and graphics editor. Take advantage of it! Explore as you go! Video-editing can be a time consuming process, but it doesn’t have to have to be painful. And in the end, you have a guaranteed crowd-impressing product. (Lots of people don’t realise how easy it is to edit videos…)