HIT Ent.'s children's property, FIREMAN SAM, has launched a new website featuring brand new CGI content -- www.firemansam.co.uk. The site was developed and built by HIT's in-house digital team alongside London-based digital communications agency, Naked Penguin Boy.
The site, which is the first HIT site to be built using CGI art, includes a Sam-themed homepage where children can enter and explore Fireman Sam's village of Pontypandy, play new games and explore activities featuring content from Egmont magazines. Parents will also find a new parents' area that features safety tips and fun at-home crafts and activities.
The site engages users through a unique interactive homepage that allows them to navigate through the inside of the fire station from behind the steering wheel of Sam's fire engine, Jupiter. Users can explore the fire station itself as well as play with buttons on the dashboard.
The games and activities which are features on the site draw from the overall themes of the Fireman Sam brand. Games include "Music to your Gears," which lets the user play and record songs using sounds from Jupiter the fire engine and 'Radar the Sniffer Dog' which allows users to direct Radar through the streets of Pontypandy to find Mike Flood, using his sense of smell.
Additionally the site includes a wide variety of activities for parents that are focused on bringing children and parents together to learn all about creativity, cooking, music and the theme most specific to Fireman Sam -- safety.
The new website launch ties in with the release of Fireman's Sam latest DVD, FIREMAN SAM -- THE NEW HERO NEXT DOOR, a direct-to-DVD compilation of new CGI episodes, which went on sale in November in the U.K. This DVD marks the consumer debut of FIREMAN SAM's all new CGI animation. The DVD features five new episodes plus a special Christmas episode.
The new sixth season of FIREMAN SAM, which will be broadcast in CGI, will begin airing in the U.K. in February 2009. Since acquiring FIREMAN SAM from its original partners, S4C, in March 2007, HIT has been working with London-based Hibbert Ralph Animation (HRTV) who in turn have joined forces with Beijing based animation studio Xing Xing, to produce the new season. The new production marks the introduction of the Pontypandy coastline, Neptune, the new lifeboat and several new characters.
