U.K. animation company Calon TV has signed a deal with French distributors to screen short films on digital screens in garage forecourts and train stations across France.
Animated downloads BIG TATTIES RUGBY and MR POKER FACE will be screened soon in between commercials at 10 train stations and 80 gas stations across France. Both animations are short, funny and highly visual with no sound, making them perfect for the growing popularity for outdoor advertising.
MR POKER FACE is a series of 10x30 downloads, aimed at adult viewers, and feature a card player who manages to keep his cool in the most bizarre and dangerous situations, but not when playing poker.
BIG TATTIES RUGBY is a series of 35x30 downloads featuring the dysfunctional Tatties giving stay-in-shape tips for coach potatoes. The short films are already proving a hit on Web channel www.blinkx.com and on mobile through a deal with Player X.
Robin Lyons, managing director of Cardiff-based Calon TV, said they are planning a similar venture in Canada.
The deal is the latest in a series of diversifications for Calon TV, who is best known for creating children's animation classics SUPERTED and FIREMAN SAM and the current preschool series HANA'S HELPLINE, now in its second season on Five Milkshake and S4C and shortlisted in this year's Broadcast Awards.
In recent years the company has started to develop comedy and children's drama with the appointment of experienced producers Peter Murphy (BYKER GROVE, ANT AND DEC, FAMOUS FIVE) and Alan Nixon, former commissioning editor for Five, who has been recruited to develop a scripted comedy series for ITV1.
It is also working to exploit its intellectual property portfolio with a series of licensing deals based on its animated creations including the recent launch of a range of HANA'S HELPLINE plush toys (Golden Bear), DVDs (2 Entertain), preschool story books (Random House) and children's clothes (Cooneen).
