Stitch Media Selected for Canada Media Fund
Stitch Media is the first production company from Nova Scotia to receive funding from The Canada Media Fund Experimental Stream.
Stitch Media will receive over $600,000 for its interactive project, Imaginary Friends. It is a production company based in Halifax which tells interactive stories. Stitch Media is recognized for using innovative technology, program enhancements and cutting-edge game design that blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
Imaginary Friends is an interactive book and game combination, targeting children between ages seven and nine, where parents are guided through a web-supported story to help children move from picture books to chapter reading. It is designed to provide an experience that is activity based while allowing the family to customize the tool to their personal routines and stories.
"Over the past few years we've been watching the apps market for kids expand and couldn't wait to join," said Stitch Media partner Evan Jones. "Imaginary Friends is about creating an interactive learning tool and we are so excited to receive funding to help us bring to life an idea that we've had for some time now."
"Stitch Media has consistently stepped up to the plate to create and produce successful interactive projects," said Ann MacKenzie, president and CEO of Film Nova Scotia. "We are happy to congratulate the company for being recognized once again for innovative productions."
The fund offers financial assistance to support projects at the production, development or marketing stages. The Experimental Stream encourages the creation of leading-edge, interactive, digital media content and software applications. Projects were evaluated by assessing the innovation, production team, business plan and distribution strategy for the project by a jury of Canadian and international industry specialists.
This year, the Canada Media Fund is investing $11.6 million in the production of 22 new projects, including 11 games, five interactive projects, four mobile applications, one interactive web series and one application software.
Film Nova Scotia is a provincial Crown corporation reporting to the Minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism. The corporation provides a wide range of programs and services to support the province's audiovisual industry. With an industry that employs almost 3,000 and contributes upwards of $100 million to the economy annually, Nova Scotia is among the largest production centres in Canada.