Halifax-based new media and television production company Collideascope Digital Pictures and Cochran Entertainment have signed a groundbreaking distribution deal which includes both broadcast and online properties as part of a package.

Under the deal, Halifax-based Cochran will distribute Collideascope’s key animated property Ollie’s Under The Bed Adventures as well as its online component Ollieland.com for sublicensing and syndication.

Ollie is a series of 10 two-minute shorts that can be used as interstitials or brought together as a half-hour television special. The special is set to air on Teletoon in the spring. Ollie has also lent himself to an extensive interactive component through his website Ollieland.com, which also launches this spring.

Ollie creator and Collideascope president/cofounder Steven Comeau says the union with Andrew Cochran, who is also well-versed within the realms of new media, is a natural fit.

‘Andrew is on our board of advisors and [the deal was procured] through that relationship,’ says Comeau, adding the distribution agreement could be the first of its kind. ‘I haven’t heard of a distributor specifically licensing or wanting to exploit the online property or online version of a property as part of a total distribution bundle.’

According to Collideascope, the Ollie character is modeled somewhat after Comeau as a child. Ollie’s adventures take place in an imaginary world under the animated six-year-old’s bed. There, the boy sees his toys come to life for a series of good times, but only when there aren’t any adults in sight.

Ollieland.com will give young fans of the special a chance to take Ollie on a number of new adventures long after the credits have rolled, according to Collideascope executive producer and cofounder Michael-Andreas Kuttner. (Kuttner was recently added to the board of governors at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for a three-year term.)

‘Ollieland is going to be a whole interactive version of the Ollie tv show. Rather than go to the website and get a little information on Ollie and a couple of downloadable videoclips, you’ll actually get to play with characters from the tv show in a little interactive online adventure.’

Kuttner hints at six possible adventures through which children can guide Ollie and his chums that ‘will be full-on episodes in their own right.’

Kuttner says Collideascope hopes to capitalize on the excitement Ollie spawns at Teletoon and among young viewers and surfers, and take the special to series. Although nothing has been etched in cel or stone, Kuttner says Collideascope plans to produce 13 half-hour episodes of Ollie’s Under The Bed Adventures, contingent on funding falling into place.

The Ollie’s Teletoon special is budgeted at approximately $500,000 with funding coming from the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, the Shaw Children’s Programming Initiative, the ctf, Telefilm Canada, Nova Scotia Film and Television Development Corporation and Cochran.

Sean Scott directed and Ed Kay receives the writing credit.

*Triad unleaches Mother of the Sea Beasts

Triad Film Productions of Halifax has just finished principal photography on its new one-hour documentary Nuliajuk: Mother of the Sea Beasts from writer/director John Houston. Nuliajuk is the second in a doc trilogy that began with Songs in Stone: An Arctic Journey Home and will conclude with Diet of Souls, currently in development.

According to executive producer and Triad president Peter d’Entremont, the doc explores the many facets of the female deity Nuliajuk, a central figure in Inuit spirituality. Sadly, says d’Entremont, as Inuit elders pass on many of their people’s legends, myths and stories die with them. Projects like Nuliajuk represent a way to keep the legends alive, he says.

‘There is an opportunity there to kind of build something,’ says d’Entremont. ‘We thought of it as a win-win situation which would allow us to do the film for world broadcast consumption, but there would also be the ethnographic element, which would serve many people for a long time.’

Interwoven within the documentary are performance pieces by the Danish theatre group Tukak, which tell the story of the mother of the sea beasts. The film also explores Nuliajuk’s relationship with the sea animals, how the story gave the Inuit people lessons about survival, and how they relate to the animals in a spiritual way.

D’Entremont says he was struck by the fact that so few people – Inuit or otherwise – knew the story of Nuliajuk as he traveled with Houston filming accounts from those who did.

‘We are seeing a lot of people who are learning this story for the first time,’ says d’Entremont, ‘but we are finding a lot of people, on the other hand, saying they have been converted to Christianity or into an Anglican faith who have forgotten this as well. This is perhaps giving an opportunity to kind of have a fuller memory of Nuliajuk for Inuit people.’

He says the rewarding part of a project like Nuliajuk is that it can also be used as a teaching tool in years to come.

‘St. Mary’s University in Halifax is starting to help us catalogue it and make it available to the academic and general public,’ says d’Entremont. ‘We are really trying to leave some residue in the work we are doing.’

John Brett, who also cut Songs in Stone for Triad, is currently editing the film. According to d’Entremont, Nuliajuk will air on Vision tv and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Financing for the $450,000-plus budgeted production came from Telefilm Canada, the lfp, tax credits and various government agencies.

Diet of Souls, the last doc in the trilogy, focuses on the stories of the Inuit hunter. Triad has begun research on the film and has developed a core team of people who are helping with the research and the ethnographic components of the project.

‘Diet of Souls will probably be even a wider reach than the first two projects because it will be more circumpolar,’ says d’Entremont. ‘We are working with a number of countries to pull this together. We’re probably in the first third of our work. We’ll finish the development in the spring and look at going into production after that.’ *