a young Toronto producer is using a cd-rom as a tv series calling card.

Vaulton Reece of Dome Management plans to get Camp Artemis, a kids’ educational animated tv series on black history, ready for a Jan. 16, 1997 launch. The cd-rom series premiere disc, which he hopes will help him meet this target, will launch in tandem during Black History month, with plans to release one title per year thereafter.

Thus far, series creator/writer/producer Reece has been in development on the project for a year. His coproducer is Hasmi Giakoumas, who has worked on many animated series including Scholastic’s Magic Schoolbus, Babar and Jim Henson’s Dog City.

The premise is to tackle black history from a Magic Schoolbus-esque approach, with a wise old bus driver/painter leading the cast of camp kids back through time to experience important dates and learn about inventions and accomplishments through the ages. Epic figures like Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and more recently, Alexandre Dumas, are in the lineup.

The prototype cd-rom is on Hannibal. We open on a city scene, and by clicking on icons throughout, like the traffic lights or flying planes, one can access relevant info such as stats on inventors. Fill out a camp card and create your own character, then the bus picks you up and takes you to camp. Meet the kids who are the series’ regular characters, and be transported to other places and times via the paintings of wise old guide Scobby.

Multimedia development and animation on the disc was done by Brian Keillor and Cindy McNeil of Toronto-based Dunedain Multimedia. Black Board International is responsible for the research and creating the info screens. Illustrations were by Richard Soujah. Development of the actual cd-rom (budgeted at $250,000) is expected to begin this month.

The series, budgeted at $300,000 per half-hour episode, is being pitched using the cd-rom prototype as a vehicle to sell the concept to numerous American companies including Bill Cosby Productions, Spike Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule, Michael Moye’s Ivory Pictures and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Reece says he has had a lot of interest from production companies, and is looking mainly to u.s. companies to find an executive producer, and to then find an animation company in a service arrangement.

Reece has series development funding from Telefilm Canada, and funding for the cd-rom project from the Ontario Film Development Corporation’s New Media program. Microsoft has expressed interest in the project as the cd-rom distributor. And several celebrities have expressed interest in doing voice-overs for the project.

Reece hopes future Heroes of Camp Artemis interactive disc titles will include Queens of the Nile and the Negro Baseball League.