Monday, September 28, 2009

more CAF press regarding nGen and the future of Fourgrounds

The St. Catharines Standard wrote a feature cover story on the $3.02 million for our future office, and interactive media production centre.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

nGen mashup.

Fourgrounds is proud to be the sponsor for September's nGen Media Mashup.

These mashup events were a huge success last year and we hope to help kick this year off in style.

The mashup is on:
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
One St. Paul Street Lounge
1 St. Paul Street
St. Catharines, ON


Friday, September 11, 2009

Community Adjustment Fund Announcement

A mini Hollywood for downtown St. Catharines

Posted By DON FRASER, Standard staff

Posted 17 days ago

Standard Staff

A production studio to make complex live-action video.

A state-of-the-art motion capture system for tracking and analyzing movement.

These and other leading technologies will soon be available thanks to more than $3 million in federal cash for the Niagara Interactive Media Generator, a centre for interactive media projects and business developments in Niagara.

The goal — to transform nGen into a top media development hub.

Adrian Thiessen, president of FourGrounds Media, is thrilled by Thursday’s announcement.

The nGen tenant is especially pumped about the giant, full-service production studio.

“It’s going to have blue and green screening capabilities to create virtual live action film environments,” Thiessen said.

“It is going to be a mini-Hollywood.”

David Oakes, nGen’s board chair and St. Catharines economic development director, said said nGen’s current space “has rapidly exceeded capacity.”

“We have now found ourselves in need of expansion that meets the needs of this emerging cluster,” said Oakes, at Thursday’s funding announcement inside nGen’s St. Catharines facility.

There are now four nGen tenants and other projects in progress, employing about 25 people.

The community adjustment fund money will allow its One St. Paul Street offices to expand to three floors.

As many as 80 new jobs could be created through the upgrading and future technology tenants that sign on.

Construction should begin shortly, with the project likely finishing by March 31, 2010.

Speakers at the media event said many players stand to benefit from the revamped facility, including Niagara College and Brock University.

“This funding will create an environment that will attract key players from the interactive media industry all over Ontario and U.S. to come to St. Catharines and Niagara,” Oakes said.

“We’ve really positioned ourselves to be a true industry leader in interactive media.”

The expansion will support technologies like interactive design, 3-D animation, digital film and video, computer gaming and webcasting, he said.

“That’s essentially what this is all about,” Oakes said. “Trying to help students and graduates define some entrepreneurial goals and create businesses that help this industry cluster move forward.”

St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra hailed the new development as the “type of stuff that’s going to put us on the map in North America.

“It’s going to be a cutting-edge facility that will allow nGen to push its path forward into the economy of tomorrow,” Dykstra said.

“And I think the federal government ... is going to receive a full return on its investment.”

This next phase will mean “the access to technology for (post-secondary) students will go through the roof,” said nGen executive director Jeff Chesebrough.

“From that standpoint, the schools are obviously overjoyed with the resources they’re going to have,” he said, in an interview after the event.

Chesebrough said the precise amount of the federal funding commitment is still being worked out, but it’s at least $3 million.

The 18-month-old nGen was founded by Brock, Niagara College, the City of St. Catharines, Niagara Economic Development Corp., Niagara Enterprise Agency, Ontario Media Development Corp., Interactive Ontario and Silicon Knights.

It began with an initial investment of $560,000 over two years.

Niagara College president Dan Patterson said the next phase will encourage Niagara and Brock students and faculty to work together as they use nGen’s new technologies.

“It’s a really important model for us, as we look at the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises,” Patterson said.

“It means some really exciting opportunities for our graduates to work in an emerging and important sector of our economy.”

Article ID# 1748023

Click here to see the announcement video.

Monday, September 7, 2009

knowfire.ca

Fourgrounds is proud to launch knowfire.ca.

knowfire.ca is an interactive fire safety campaign tailored for the 18-24 demographic. This campaign is a partnership between Fourgrounds, Brock University, Niagara College, Niagara Regional Fire Chiefs Association, and the Niagara Chapter of Ontario Provincial Fire Prevention Officers.

Campaign concept and content was produced solely by Fourgrounds Media Inc.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

congratulations.


Fourgrounds would like to congratulate Beckie Jas on winning an APEX Communication Award on her Air Quality Video Campaign.

Beckie won the APEX Award for "One-of-a-Kind - Energy Efficiency Publications" with Nick Goes Nowhere, and Joules on Juice, two videos co-produced by Aexian Studios and the Fourgrounds Team for the Halton Regional Health department.

The videos were also submitted to the INCHES Film Competition.

Congratulations Beckie, and we at Fourgrounds were happy to help create these videos.



To see the videos on the Halton website click here.