Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

This project is a collaboration between Sheridan College and its Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, and industry partner MARZ Livz Inc., that is designed to create a unique integrated on-line Film Development Kit (FDK), initially aimed at the significant international audience for genre films featuring Monsters, Aliens, Robots and Zombies. The MARZ web portal is being developed as an on-line aggregation site for both viewers and producers of content in these genre areas. The current project will involve Sheridan collaboration on web programming and graphic redesign of the overall web portal, but will primarily focus on the interaction of computer programmers, visual effects specialists and media post-production technologists on development of the Film Development Kit. Given Sheridan/SIRT's international reputation in both advanced content production curriculum and research in the areas of computer animation and modelling, visual effects and interactive real-time virtual production, Sheridan is an ideal partner for MARZ on this project.Market need: This project aims to fill a market need for a one-stop-shop where none exists for creating high-quality content, acquiring digital assets, assembling these assets into user content, then uploading for distribution to a genre specific site with built-in fan base. (Genre area: Audio-visual content focused on Monsters, Aliens, Robots, and Zombies MARZ.)How the project will resolve this need: This project focuses on the Film Development Kit (FDK) required to add digital assets into raw video footage, editing a final video along with various post-production requirements. Company track record and capacity to commercialize the results of the project: Lon Molnar, CEO of world-renowned VFX Studio Intelligent Creatures, has experience as a founder in developing a visual effects studio that has attracted industry leading film studios and award winning filmmakers. His studio is responsible for creating libraries of digital assets, and he has the relationships with vendors in the industry to acquire larger libraries for commercialization purposes. How the company will take the results of the project and commercialize them and how will this benefit the companys growth in revenues and employment: This project will be a key element in the development of the MARZ web portal as an internationally-recognized online distribution platform aimed at a genre specific audience. This platform is about community, a community of film fans and filmmakers that are eagerly motivated to contribute on every level to support the genre. Once we establish this fan base, the FDK allows users to become active members motivated by participating in the monetization themselves with their contributions of digital assets and original content. We will be able to leverage their social activity to build an audience for themselves, by re-directing their efforts to our platform. Through collaboration with Sheridan College on this project, the industry partner's portal will rise above on-line sites that simply aggregate uploaded videos for viewing by a particular audience, creating an on-line marketplace for assets such as music, computer models and visual effects elements that can be utilized within the online Film Development Kit.