Project Canvas Development Diary
Libra Television & Onteca
Diary 1: Would like to meet...
Libra’s early Canvas experience can be likened to something from the personal columns.
Indie in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, GSOH, enjoys making children’s and education content for broadcast TV, WLTM like-minded digital company for good times and possible collaboration on a project for the new Canvas platform.
So, back in March, the hunt for Mr Right-digital-partner began. Libra got out her best assets, some BBC Learning Zone Broadband video clips that taught primary school kids how to beatbox and a decidedly uninteractive accompanying Beatbox Hero style “game”. Could this be the start of something bigger?
Her first date was with a big, swanky agency. It didn’t work out. They wanted different things, namely a big brand and not a little education project. She was turned down by the next agency too busy double dating with other potential partners. Eventually she proposed to Onteca, after remembering their presentation at the Project Canvas launch event about working with Cbeebies on IPTV red button technology.
The courtship consisted of a productive development meeting with the Onteca team at their office in Liverpool. Libra wooed by the music composition game technology they showed off. They clearly had all the complimentary skills she required for the project. Then followed a flurry of emails back and forth, as the two got to know each other, and the proposal was shaped.
Arm in arm, the new partners marched down the aisle pitching a game that would allow the CBBC audience to create their own beatboxing compositions, and surreptitiously learn about music while doing so, using the Canvas digibox. Would the in-laws (sorry Vision+Media!) like it? The answer was “I do”.
Libra celebrated the marriage in April with a lovely gift of development funding from the in-laws and waited for Onteca to carry her over the digital threshold. Like all newlyweds, once the excitement of the big day had died down they were faced with the prospect of making the partnership work.
There was definitely a honeymoon period at first. Not much bickering over the marital contract, all funds split 50:50. However it soon became obvious that neither really knew exactly what was expected of them. Each had their own talents but what were they supposed to produce together?
In May, guidance came in the form of BBC Future Media & Technology’s Simon Lumb and Marc Goodchild who explained the digital facts of life. Create a demo that enlightens other parts of the BBC to the potential of the Canvas platform and could potentially lead to real commissions ahead of the box’s release next year. So both parties went off to make a Canvas baby.
Technology’s equivalent of nine months later (which was more like three) we were proudly displaying our creation to a panel of visiting dignitaries at Vision+Media’s offices, but more about that after the next instalment...
Louise Lynch
Libra Television
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