Zeros2Heroes

Animism: The Sacred Sites

August 2010

Animism: The Gods’ Lake kicked off at Fan Expo in Toronto with the launch of the ARG component of the property. With the help of Professor Declan Grey, an innovative iPhone app and mysterious posters featuring augmented reality tags, players were initiated into the ARG through a number of mechanism. Featured in the Vancouver Sun, Playback and WIRED, this was quite a coming-out party for the new series.

San Diego Comic Con

July 2010

Zeros 2 Heroes was back at Comic-Con for the fifth year, this time helping to launch a new transmedia property called The Dream Detective. On the panel “From the Computer Screen to the Silver Screen”, Ryan Robbins, Keith Turner and Kaleena Kiff provided exclusive insight for aspiring writers and producers interested in developing a web property. Sharing stories from past experiences and future endeavours, the Q & A was lively, informative... and a little irreverent.

Zeros 2 Heroes 2.0

June 2010

Zeros 2 Heroes Media has re-launched it's flagship community, imbuing it with a new look and new functionality. In the coming months this site will be re-established as the hub for the larger Z2H network, with a number of features that span multiple communities. Representative of the companies ability to provide digital media solutions for television, film and video game clients, this network will encompass genre entertainment as a whole, though maintain a devotion to the comic community that gave us our start. Z2H 2.0 is here.

Hugh Hefner, the Film

May 2010

Zeros 2 Heroes Media is working in conjunction with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brigitte Berman to promote her latest film, Hugh Hefner, Playboy, Activist and Rebel. The created microsite will enlist the support of fans to push the film into nationwide distribution through an interactive and engaging voter interface. In lending their support, fans will assume one of Hef’s titular roles, playboy, activist or rebel, and gain a glimpse into how the man himself fits each one to a tee.

Are You Awake?

April 2010

The Dream Detective is Zeros 2 Heroes’ latest IP offering; a new take on the classic detective noir genre. Z2H is planning a cross-media blitz with a strong focus on augmented reality. From social media websites to Facebook and mobile apps, The Dream Detective will utilize a diverse array of tools to build momentum. Many of the strategies are well off-brand, allowing Z2H to build a groundswell of interest and support for the property before it’s even launched.

Animating Animism

March 2010

Z2H is deep into production of an original IP that will sprawl across television, mobile, motion, digital and print channels. While the concept is still under wraps, the Z2H team is working with a number of prominent partners including a national broadcaster, an international distributor and one of the world’s largest videogame companies. Fuller details will be released as the campaign to unleash your inner animal is let out of its cage in mid-2010.

Prime Time Talk

February 2010

Television executives are getting primed for their move into digital media and there is a lot of talk about how this will come to pass. To give some perspective on what has worked (and hasn’t) in terms of audience engagement strategies, Z2H president Matt Toner moderated a panel that featured leading lights from LonelyGirl15, Riese, and MovieSet. Sometimes reassuring, sometimes somewhat alarming, this panel discussed how to bridge the gap between traditional stories and digital audiences.

Helping OUT tv Get Out There

January 2010

As a broadcaster, OUT tv has been moving aggressively into the digital space, across a number of channels. One of their leading productions, Hot Pink Shorts, is being reimagined as a completely convergent property: web leads to television, mobile, DVD and beyond. But the basic underpinning is an entirely new relationship with their audience. Z2H will fashion a social viewing experience that allows audience members to work directly with the network to design next season’s show.

Whistler Film Festival

December 2009

Zeros 2 Heroes president Matt Toner returns from moderating two programs at the Whistler Film Festival — The Age of Collaboration, a discussion of emerging business models and production issues in light of new digital realities, and the popular Pitch Fest sessions, giving emerging talent the opportunity to pitch and refine cross platform content strategies with an impressive panel of industry experts. The conversation was lively as issues of surviving and thriving in the changing landscape were explored — coverage in the Vancouver Sun touted the positive outlook for the future these panels fostered.

This Hour has 22 Minutes

November 2009

In partnership with the CBC and Halifax Film, Zeros 2 Heroes' latest multi-media content offering comes in the form of an interactive "Briefing Book" for the TV series This Hour has 22 Minutes. With humorous illustrations, saucy Easter eggs, and a compelling tactile interface punctuating the irreverent copy created by show writers, the book provides a timely compliment to the series. Fans of the show can now get their satire-hit between episodes — look for new weekly offerings throughout the run of the show at: http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/book/main.html

SPARK: A Social Media Solution

October 2009

Wrapping up a string of speaking engagements with executives from across the industry, Zeros 2 Heroes Media held a half-day session at SIGGRAPH’s SPARK Animation Festival. Whether as feature-length films or memorable shorts, animation is an increasingly important form of visual storytelling… but the same principals underpin how producers need to develop their digital strategies. The Zeros 2 Heroes team spent the morning discussing the power of social media, the best fan engagement strategies and whether Toy Story was really that much better than Toy Story II.

Understanding Fanboys

September 2009

Zeros 2 Heroes capped a week of meetings at the Toronto International Film Festival by giving a seminar on the anatomy of a fanboy (or fangirl). Joined by Michael Regina, the marketing genius behind Peter Jackson’s TheOneRing.net, the Zeros 2 Heroes team discussed the pros and cons of communicating with this very challenging demographic through a sometimes hard-to-manage medium. For filmmakers launching a new genre concept into today’s marketplace, understanding the online psychology of a fanboy (or fangirl) is a must.

ReBoot: A Social Media Solution

August 2009

Working with our long-time partner, Rainmaker Entertainment, the company launched a new fully-featured social network dedicated to the pioneering television series ReBoot. Billed as an audience-driven compendium, the site will harness the wisdom of thousands of ReBoot fans, distilling their enthusiasm into a definitive guide to what made the original series great. This new online property draws together past viral marketing campaigns into a single platform to promote the forthcoming feature film.

If you'd like to check out the website, click here.

Going From Zero To Hero

July 2009

Every year, more than 120,000 fans of genre entertainment gather at the Comic Con International event in San Diego to celebrate old favorites and get sneak peeks at the next round of Hollywood blockbusters. It is an intense five-day experience where new properties either catch fire or fizzle out entirely. Zeros 2 Heroes was there to talk to a packed house of convention attendees as to how they can best navigate the treacherous currents of this rapidly changing branch of the entertainment industry.

Digital Strategies for Film & TV

July 2009

Producers of film and television properties are being confronted with an increasingly complex challenge: the need to “go digital” in an age where the speed of technological progress is only outstripped by changes in the habits of online audiences. Playing to a capacity crowd of seasoned entertainment executives, Zeros 2 Heroes Media delivered an in-depth seminar that tried to demystify the jargon and replace it with a series of concrete best practices for dealing with new media.

If you couldn’t attend, but would like to receive a copy of our primer, click here.

Manga Memoirs

June 2009

The first volume of our Manga Memoirs anthology has been launched! This initiative was a collaboration with Canadian Foreign Affairs to produce works of cross-cultural significance. Canadian and Japanese citizens were encouraged to share personal stories of encounters with the other culture – the eight stories which struck the biggest chord with the community were professionally illustrated and collected as an 80 page graphic novel, which is now available to read free online at www.mangamemoirs.com.

PopVox Awards 2009

May 2009

For the second year in a row, Zeros 2 Heroes Media is selected as a winner at New Media BC’s PopVox Industry Awards… but this year we are please to announce the company was honoured with two awards: Best Digital Learning Initiative (Instructional Design) for Comix 101, and Best Company Use of Social Media for the I Love Heartland social collaboration community. We are particularly pleased to received these two awards, not only because the Comix 101 initiative and the I Love Heartland site are two projects that we are immensely proud of, but because the PopVox award winners are selected by the public themselves.

Heartland Mixed Media Magazine

April 2009

Now live at www.iloveheartland.com, the eagerly anticipated Heartland Mixed Media Magazine is being met with tremendous enthusiasm by fans of the show. This interactive digital magazine gives the community access to not only premium content and behind the scenes looks at their favourite characters and actors, but the ability to comment, share and otherwise engage with fellow fans. Subsequent issues of the magazine will include even more leading edge interactivity, further helping the community remain engaged throughout the show’s summer hiatus, and allowing new fans a chance to jump on board before the fall premier.