Select company: firm bases interactive kids' video on 'Choose Your Own Adventure'.FOR upstart producers Michelle Crames and Jeff Norton Jeffrey Thomas Norton (born November 25 1965, Arlington, Massachusetts) is a retired American ice hockey defenceman. He grew up in the town of Acton, Massachusetts , "Choose Your Own Adventure" isn't just the name of their new interactive DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. series. It's how they started their business. Their Beverly Hills-based firm Lean Forward Media is poised in two weeks to debut its updated version of the 1980s-era hit children's book series by Raymond A. Montgomery. The Bantam Bantam Former city and sultanate, Java. It was located at the western end of Java between the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean. In the early 16th century it became a powerful Muslim sultanate, which extended its control over parts of Sumatra and Borneo. Books series spanned 184 titles between 1979 and 1998, with more than 250 million books in print. The duo is hoping that parents who grew up with the original books--in which young readers were asked to make choices in the storyline and then referred to pages with various scenarios based on those decisions--will hook their kids up with the DVD version. The user-controlled educational videos allow young viewers--the target audience is 6- to 11-year-olds--to use their remote controls to make choices at the end of each scene. As with the book, each choice puts users on a different path, with positive outcomes following good decisions and negative scenarios following poor choices. Having made a number of good decisions, Norton and Crames are ready to turn to the next page when "The Abominable Snowman abominable snowman or yeti (yĕt`ē), humanlike creature so named because it is associated with the perpetual snow region of the Himalayas. ," hits stores on July 25. "We've been really fortunate with the choices we've made, and are looking forward to doing some great, innovative things," Crames said. So how did two thirty-something Harvard Business School Harvard Business School, officially named the Harvard Business School: George F. Baker Foundation, and also known as HBS, is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. grads with no children get into the educational video market? Both Crames and Norton grew up reading the books and remembered them fondly. They began to discuss the possibilities of a business plan while they were in the entertainment and media club at Harvard. After tracking the rights for a couple of years, they simply cold-called the author and arranged a meeting. In 2003, Norton and Crames drove to Vermont to present Montgomery, his wife and their attorney in 2003 a detailed, 42-page plan on what they would do with the rights and how they planned to develop the videos. Fans with a plan "They had been approached by lots of other entertainment people, but all of those companies just sent their business affairs people," Norton said. "We were fans, loved and knew the books and just had a very full and detailed plan." Norton and Crames gave Montgomery 15 percent of their company in exchange for the rights, and have paid him dividends since the deal was reached. Lean Forward pulled together $200,000 from angel investors that summer, but it wasn't until the next year that Crames and Norton reached the chapter that would kickstart their company. The pair took their idea, entered and won the 2004 Venture Bowl, a college business contest sponsored by Forbes and HSBC HSBC Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation HSBC Humane Society of Broward County (Florida) HSBC Humane Society of Bay County (Bay County, Michigan) Bank. The experience helped Crames and Norton make the connections and meet the investors who would get their show on the road. Venture firm Carrot Capital led Lean Forward's $2 million second round of financing in July 2004. Raising that money enabled Lean Forward to extensively research its target audience and develop the interactive DVD technology, which was outsourced to Santa Monica's Blink Digital. For the production and distribution of several hundred thousand copies the duo went to Camarillo-based Goldhil Home Media International Inc., which pushed the videos into retail outlets like Target, Wal-Mart, Barnes and Nobles, Blockbuster and Amazon.com. So far, the feedback has been positive. "We had a tremendous level of interest across the board from all our distribution and retail partners," said Chris Donaldson, Goldhil's director of publicity. "Norton said that he's hoping each DVD release should gross between $4 million and $5 million. That would be a nice return, considering the first production cost about $2 million to develop and produce. And the series will have more than a built-in audience going for it. Lending their creative talents to "The Abominable Snowman" will be Frankie Muniz Frankie Muniz (born Francisco Muniz IV on December 5 1985, in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey) is an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award nominated American actor, who is now a full time Formula Atlantic driver. ("Malcolm in the Middle Malcolm in the Middle is a seven-time Emmy-winning,[1] one-time Grammy-winning[1] and seven-time Golden Globe-nominated[1] American sitcom created by Linwood Boomer for the Fox Network. ), the husband and wife team of actors William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman Felicity Huffman (born December 9, 1962) is an Academy Award nominated American actress. She is well known for her role as Lynette Scavo, the hectic busy Super-Mom on the ABC hit show Desperate Housewives which debuted in 2004, and for which Huffman won an Emmy Award. ("Desperate Housewives Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series, created by Marc Cherry, who also serves as show runner, and produced by ABC Studios - The Walt Disney Company's main television studio - and Cherry Productions. ") and Lacey Chabert. Negotiations that began in 2004 culminated in a deal with PepsiCo Inc. for the series to be featured on 18 million boxes of Quaker Oats Life breakfast cereal breakfast cereal, a food made from grain, commonly eaten in the morning. The oldest type of cereal, known as porridge or gruel, requires cooking in water or milk. The modern breakfast cereals, however, are entirely precooked and eaten in cold milk. this summer, with a related contest and rebate offer. "It's a great fit for the Life Cereal brand and our core consumers, which are families." said Jamie Stein, director of public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most for PepsiCo's Quaker division." |
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