Shanghai Media Group's WingsMedia launched a slate of new plans for strategic cooperation with its international counterparts at the 23rd Shanghai TV Festival. As part of its strategy for Sci-fi IPs, WingsMedia and Tiny Island Productions will collaborate on WingsMedia's planned mega-franchise Starship MZ, which they aim to grow into China's equivalent of the Marvel Universe franchise.
Last year, WingsMedia's original Science-fiction themed reality-TV show, Starship MZ: 2049 (S1), proved to be a successful hit with audiences nationwide. Starship MZ leverages on the popularity of the show and the national demand for science fiction content, as well as meet WingsMadia's goal to “Globalize and Export Chinese Culture”. When Starship MZ launches this year, Tiny Island Productions will be on board to create content based off its hit Sci-fi kids animated series Dream Defenders, that will lead to new TV series, feature film, comics and more, adaptated for the China market.
"By leveraging on WingsMedia's vast experience and expertise, while tapping on China's historical and rich legacy of art and culture, together we will bring China-made Science Fiction to the next level. " said David Kwok, CEO of Tiny Island Productions. "We are very grateful to Wingsmedia for this special opportunity."
Tiny Island Productions' Dream Defenders TV series, about twin siblings who discover a supercomputer that sends them into dreamworlds to protect the real world against nightmare monsters, has found international success. With Dreamworks as its distributor of the original series, Dream Defenders has been sold to 80 countries around the world and shown on 5 platforms in the United States including Discovery Family and Amazon Prime. In Europe, it has been show on Super RTL and Planeta Junior. In Asia, it is on DreamWorks TV Asia across 19 Asian countries.
David Kwok, CEO of Tiny Island Productions, shared how Dream Defenders has been adapted for Chinese Audiences. “Somewhere in China, a city suddenly comes under attack by nightmare monsters based on Chinese mythology, such as the Dragon, Kirin and Phoenix. A pair of Chinese twins desperately sends out a distress call for help to Zane and Zoey from the original series, who reveal the secret technology to enter the Dream Worlds. Now these new Chinese heroes must race against time to save their friends and family from the threat of the nightmare monsters.
To make Dream Defenders stand out globally, Tiny Island Productions constantly explores emerging technologies, from its initial broadcast in stereoscopic 3D on 3Net (joint venture 24/7 3D network from Sony, Discovery and IMAX) to creating Augmented Reality and interactive Virtual Reality experiences that immerse viewers in the Dream Defenders universe.
“Young audiences nowadays will not be satisfied with only watching a series on TV.” David Kwok explains, “In order to give the Chinese audience a better experience with Sci-fi content, we are constantly pushing the limits of new technologies such as VR to create a new form of storytelling and entertainment for today's evolving audiences. Together with our partner Presence Pictures, we integrated technology with creativity to create a unique experience for audiences that expands the stories beyond the TV series.”
“Imagine, after watching an episode, you can pick up your smartphone, slide it into a pair of VR goggles that cost only USD$5 in China, and dive into the world of the show to further immerse yourselves in the story. We wanted to make something audiences can easily jump into, anytime, anywhere, instead of requiring expensive and complicated computer-based setups. But this is not a 360 video. With the Dream Defenders app, when you physically look around, walk, run or jump in the real world, you will do the same in the virtual world. And when you stare and focus on the monsters, you can shoot at them without additional accessories. We are also allowing multiple viewers to simultaneously enter the same scenario, so that they can team up to adventure and fight alongside the heroes together. Audiences are no longer passive observers of the show. Now they are characters in the virtual world, and what they do will change the ending of the stories.”
Tiny Island Productions has plans to tie up with fast food restaurants for Dream Defenders themed promotions where food-packaging boxes for meals can be folded into virtual reality goggles. It hopes to make Dream Defenders easily accessible to the mass audience so that they can be part of the story's evolving universe.
