ZODIAC MEDIA founder/president H. Paul Gill died suddenly of heart failure while playig basketball on June 25, 2003 at the age of 28 in Toronto, Canada.
Gill's new company had only recently announced a roster of TV series, specials and character brands, including MAPLE SHORTS, a clever and innovative Web-inspired 13x24 series produced in association with CBC. The worlds first kids animated TV format and "Flash animation film festival" contains 4x4-minute Flash animation shorts and commentaries for 9-12-year-olds. In the U.S., the series is called LIBERTY SHORTS, SHORTS DOWN UNDER in Australia, SHORTS COUTURE in France and THE QUEENS SHORTS in the U.K.
Featuring a young and dynamic animation team of seven, bred on the videogame industry and all new forms of digital entertainment technology, Gill was promoting his Zodiac Media (www.zodiacmedia.com) via the Internet as a low-cost sales tool. "In a universe of more than 600 premium cable services, the Internet is a very important testing ground for us, because it allows sampling without ever having to go into production," said Gill.
In keeping with Zodiac Medias commitment to bridge new technology with cost effective production procedures, Gill boasted his company was among the first to exploit the new digital storyboard, reducing paperwork and increasing productivity.
In the arena of merchandising, Zodiac Media has its own birthday licensing program that features the ZEDKIDS, 13 animated characters representing each sign of the zodiac. With names like Zoar, Zota, Zogem, Zoni and Zocan; the birthday-based merchandising line was the result of Gills expertise as a former VP of Blab Media, previously known as Ecards.com. In his position, Gill helped to produce more than 80 hours of Flash animation for greeting cards, garnering the young producers work high praise in the media.
Zodiac Media was also developing 10 animated and live-action programs, including the feature film, INDIRA, based on the life of Indira Gandhi.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, July 2 at 11:00 am at Meadowvale Crematorium Chapel, located at Meadowvale Cemetery, 7732 Chinguacousy Road in Brampton. He is survived by his parents, a brother, grandparents as well as numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. For further information, please contact Denise Lambert at 416-599-2300.
