Leafs-fan Frank decides he can no longer handle sub-zero Canadian temperatures and asks his Habs-fan buddy Dale to help him deep-fry himself in a vat of doughnut grease; a suave Polar Bear with a British accent asks Chilly Beach residents if he may devour them, and being polite Canadians, they usually oblige.

Welcome to Chilly Beach, a full-sound Canuck cartoon created in Flash animation for the Internet. Chilly Beach is – according to its creators – Canada’s fourteenth friendliest town, nestled on the banks of a meandering ice floe. Main character Dale McDonald is a recent college grad whose life revolves around the national staples of hockey, doughnuts and beer. He is also a late-night dj with a soft spot for Anne Murray records.

In production for more than a year, the Chilly Beach site currently offers 15 one- to nine-minute ‘webisodes’ which visitors can download free of charge. The producer, Toronto-based Infopreneur, is an Internet content provider and developer that has extended other companies’ print and television properties to the Net for the past two and a half years while also creating its own original programming.

‘It started both ways, because the company realized they wanted to maintain ownership over properties they developed,’ explains Infopreneur vp business development-content Brian Katz. ‘And the way to do that is to invest in them and market them themselves.’

The wacky minds behind Chilly Beach are creator and executive producer Dan Hawes, writer and animator Doug Sinclair, character artist and voice artist Todd Peterson, background artist John Goodwin, voice artist and story contributor Steve Ashton, and Web page designer Jocelyn Stretton.

Infopreneur may soon reap large dividends from its Chilly Beach property, as its in-house animation team puts the finishing touches on a 22-minute television pilot that has attracted the interest of broadcasters including The Comedy Network, Teletoon, and mtv. According to Katz, ‘We haven’t decided which one we’re going with yet.’

Meanwhile, Infopreneur is working on how to make the Chilly Beach website more profitable.

‘People are used to getting ‘free’ content on the Net, but that’s a bit of a misnomer,’ Katz points out. ‘They’re paying for access to the Internet, just like they’re paying a monthly subscription fee to cable networks. Advertisers are paying the tv broadcast companies, who in turn are licensing programs from producers. In this model, no one is really paying the Internet producers for their content, so they are forced to go directly to see advertisers, working with the marketing departments.’

One advertiser Infopreneur has approached is Molson Canada, and as a result the site incorporates references to the brewery’s products. For example, a Chilly Beach cyber-tourist brochure describes the town as ‘where proud Canadian traditions like hockey brawls and Molson Golden are cherished.’

Katz believes Molson fit naturally with the Chilly Beach content being developed around beer and hockey.

‘Where you can, you have to integrate the products into the storyline [so as] not to make the storyline corrupt or take away from it, but to generate some kind of product appeal that complements the characters and what they’re doing,’ Katz explains. He indicates that also potentially in the works are banner ads, so long as they ‘add something of value to the story or characters.’

Katz believes this type of brand integration calls for Internet content producers to work closely with their sponsor in order to harmonize with that company’s mandate and ad campaign.

‘Large companies like Molson are just now starting to realize how to work with Internet companies on an ongoing basis,’ he says. ‘Chilly Beach is not only a project on a website, it’s the ability to use the site as a network that has to be refreshed every day, almost like a tv program, and it’s being broadcast around the world. [The question is] how can Molson take advantage of that? It’s not just an ad on a bus shelter – it’s a live, breathing entity that can have world appeal.’

Less back bacon

and maple syrup

The dilemma Infopreneur faces as Chilly Beach grows in popularity is how to take advantage of the global opportunity the Web presents with such distinctively Canadian content. Katz estimates that 80% of the site’s 50,000 unique hits per month are coming from the u.s., and the tv broadcasters interested in a Chilly Beach series would deliver the show not only in North America, but to England and Australia as well.

‘I think the storylines are going to be more generic or universal in nature, even though the characters and setting might be Canadian,’ Katz suggests. ‘[It] has to be understood by an international audience that’s looking for that kind of content – very similar to South Park [in] the way it’s clearly understood in most of the English-speaking world.’

While the creators may tone down the Canadiana, they will also look for ways to include other nationalities.

‘Our focus is not Canada, our focus is the world,’ Katz continues. ‘So where we can, we’re going to bring in story elements from other countries – other personalities, other characters.’

One way the site has already sought that wider audience is by creating parodies of Hollywood movies and shows in webisodes titled ‘Apocalypse Snow,’ ‘Rink of Dreams’ and ‘Hudson’s Baywatch.’ Nonetheless, the webisode archive includes stories revolving around such national themes as the rcmp, Hockey Night in Canada and curling. Katz suggests that for audiences outside of Canada to ‘get it,’ the site may have to add ‘areas of clarification, or maps of Canada, just to make it a little more identifiable.’

Katz recognizes that securing international audiences also means attracting a different level of sponsorship.

‘When you try to reach a global market, you are more able to get global brands sponsoring and advertising with you,’ he says. ‘It was difficult at the beginning for us to say, ‘This episode is going to be for the world, let’s go after Coca-Cola and get them as a world sponsor.’ But as the stories and personalities get more broad, we’ll be going after those world brands.’

Another major revenue stream for Chilly Beach comes through merchandising, with beach blankets, hats, scarves, and even hockey sticks available for purchase. And the days of downloading webisodes for free might be coming to an end.

Companies that provide the software that enables surfers to watch Internet cartoons such as Chilly Beach, including RealNetworks, Windows Media Player and Shockwave, are now creating networks of entertainment distribution on the Web, which may represent the future of Internet property delivery. So far, RealNetworks and Windows Media Player have committed to involvement with Chilly Beach, whereas Infopreneur is still negotiating with Shockwave.

Katz sees this system moving toward the tv syndication model. The Chilly Beach site or some of its webisodes would be linked to, or reside on, a distributor’s site, where ‘Shockwave or RealNetworks might license the use of the webisodes on a limited basis. [Surfers would] subscribe to a Shockwave entertainment site that has a lot of different content on it, or pop.com, or AtomFilms, and they’ll subscribe to specific areas that are of interest to them.’

Which raises the question – if fans have grown accustomed to watching Chilly Beach at no charge above their monthly Internet access fee, will they be prepared to suddenly pay the extra dollars to see it?

Katz acknowledges that ‘if they’re going to pay, they’re going to expect a lot more value for their money.’ Infopreneur’s plans to enhance the site include an expectation to hire more animators to help step up production, which currently holds at one webisode per month.

The Chilly Beach

Canadian Trivia Shootout

Internet/tv tie-ins have typically been born out of established tv programs extending their brand to incorporate the interactive experience, but in this case, the website came first.

‘Certainly the Web is a good proving ground to see if there’s an audience for that material, and if there is and it works well, obviously there are spin-offs to tv, film, and merchandise,’ Katz says.

Even if Infopreneur realizes its goal of the Chilly Beach tv pilot leading to a full season of 26 episodes, the future of the website is not in doubt. In fact, the pilot will have some life on the Net as well. The 22-minute episode will be divided into shorter webisodes whose download times visitors can tolerate. [A 56K modem is recommended for the optimal Chilly Beach experience, although a slower speed will suffice. The site creators jazz up the downloading experience by flashing humorous text on the screen while you wait.]

As Chilly Beach the website and – potentially – the tv program evolve, there will have to be some separation of the content delivered to each medium.

‘If someone’s going to be in their living room watching Chilly Beach on tv, they’re going to watch it with minimum amounts of interactivity,’ Katz says. ‘If they’re closer to their computer, the ability to interact is going to be greater.’

One of the site’s interactive features allows the surfer to select an area of the town they would like to visit. Entering the outdoor hockey rink presents the visitor with a couple of games they can play – Bubblemaster, described as a ‘Chilly variation on the classic Simon memory game,’ and The Chilly Beach Canadian Trivia Shootout.

Thus far the Chilly Beach producers have had free rein over content since it has been broadcast only over the Internet, which does not abide by the same entrenched standards that exist for television programming. As far as toning down the cartoon for tv, Katz is not worried, comparing it to another notorious program currently on the air.

‘Chilly Beach is certainly not as racy as South Park,’ he says, but then allows, ‘there’s verbal raciness and then visual raciness. I think we have more graphic scenes of blood and violence as it relates to hockey or polar bear attacks.’

Katz envisions Chilly Beach fans as ‘the Teletoon or late-night Comedy Network kind of audience, 18 to 35.’ When it comes to controlling the nature of content available on the Internet, he sees it as in the hands of the artists.

‘If you’re going after a particular audience, sometimes they want to see that [edgy material],’ he says. ‘If you’re worried about offending mothers and their children, then there has to be a certain amount of self-governance there, or [put] laws in place.’

www.chillybeach.com

www.infopreneur.com