The Moving Visuals Co. did a rare company outing to take a peek at Marketing Magazine’s  2011 Agency of the Year Awards. For the first time, the magazine was awarding Production Agency of the Year, for which TMVC won a Bronze Award, and was nominated for a Local Hero award.

It looks small, but it’s actually pretty heavy. Heavy enough to inflict serious damage if thrown at a window or a human being!  But we’ll just use it as a paperweight…

Thanks to the judges for giving us something. And thanks to Live! Studios for snapping the group pix below. See everyone next year – hopefully!

How time flies.  We’re already chugging full speed ahead into 2011, but offer you this last quick look back at 2010’s TV highlights:

FACTUAL

This was a significant year for us with some groundbreaking projects:

– MADAME MAO (Bio Channel): the first ever biography of Chairman Mao’s wife Jiang Qing.  She was for years, THE most powerful woman in China since the Empress Dowager, yet nothing substantial had been done on this woman.  This was a follow up to Making Mao – our other documentary tracing Mao’s communist propaganda.   Thanks to author / biographers Ross Terrill and Ye Yonglie for their generous help and participation.  And to the veritable Paul Pickowicz.  Glad you liked it Ross.

– MANNY PACQUIAO (Bio Channel): Asia – and one of the World’s Greatest Boxers finally gets his story told outside of the usual HBO pre-fight specials.  Manny’s story is truly one of the rags-to-riches Rocky tales.  We filmed Manny’s mother and brother in his hometown of General Santos City and unveiled how Manny went from street urchin to the US $ 100 million dollar man.   Will he fight Floyd Mayweather?  Stay tuned.

– FOOD NATION (Okto): Our popular food series – which traces Singapore’s culinary history across Asia garnered a Finalist nomination in the New York Festivals for Mediacorp / Okto.

– THE PILL THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (History Channel):  We commemorated 50 years of the Pill in this documentary special supported by Bayer-Schering Pharma.

– MODERN PILGRIMS (Channel News Asia): Our popular series traced pilgrimages to India (Buddhism) and Mecca (Islam).  We make it sound easy – but lots of legwork was involved…

– OUR CHILDREN (MDA / China Education TV): Our first co-production with China’s CETV with Media Development Authority covering the lives of kids in schools.

KIDS

As usual, we gave Asian kids plenty to keep their eyeballs glued to the screen:

– GROOM MY ROOM – Season 6 (Okto) proved that you can’t keep a good thing down as kids clamoured to have their rooms redone.  And we’re back for Season 7 in 2011!

– THE NEWS TRUMPET ( Mediacorp 8 ) was our first hand puppet news show.  No toys were harmed in the process, but some hands were of course, exhausted by the end of the series.

– THE SPECIALS (Okto) was our first 75-min telemovie – conceived by the uber talents of Director Gavin Lim; Writer Nick Oh – with Oon Jit Fong and Debra Chong on deck.  Filmed with support of Canon on their wonderful 7D.

– SUPER SCIENCE (TV IQ) was our first series of interstitials for Astro’s TV IQ (Hooray) and gave our motion graphic artist Davadrian and illustrator Dorothy a chance to flex their creative animation muscles.

LIFESTYLE

Our beloved genre remained steadfast in output:

– LEGENDARY CUISINES (Channel U) – No other show does what this does: dig up ancient recipes from folklore and brings them to life.  Hosted by the impeccable Guo Liang.

– THE COUCH ASIA (Channel News Asia) – our highly successful talk show format  expanded its reach from Singapore to Malaysia – covering personalities and celebrities there.  Thanks to our hotel sponsors  Fullerton Bay, Pan Pacific (Singapore) and Sheraton Imperial (KL, Malaysia) for their splendid rooms.

– SAME BUT DIFFERENT (Channel 5) – Host Chua Enlai entertained and gave us the inside scoop on how the things you buy might be similar – yet different.  Or vice versa.  Cars!  Steaks!  Beds!  TVs!  Nothing was spared.

– ARTS FORWARD (Okto) – We have a particular soft spot for anything to do with the arts.  They are probably somewhat of an endangered TV species, but Singapore continues to charge on by investing $$$ into arts education.  We took stock of this remarkable situation.

A BIG THANKS to all who worked on the projects and made it possible – production teams, guests, channels, etc!

Next in Part 2: Promos! And the Chinese Department!

The Moving Visuals Co. recently took part in the inaugural 2010 session of Crossing Borders – an event that brought together producers and directors across Asia Pacific and Europe to develop their documentary ideas.

From mid to end 2010, TMVC Producer / Director Mak CK participated in an extensive master class and pitching session jointly organized by the European Documentary Network (EDN), Documentary Campus and Guangzhou Documentary Association.

The ongoing documentary project is about a designer who teaches fashion to convicts at Philippine’s largest maximum security prison.

Starting in Shanghai in June 2010, Mak and other participants took part in an 8-day workshop. Commissioning editors, filmmakers and veterans in the industry were invited as trainers to help steer and further develop the project’s concept through a series of lectures, group discussions and screenings. Attending the second leg in Leipzig in October, they watched as others took part in the pitching forum at the world’s 2nd largest documentary film festival.

In December,  participants were prepared for the final workshop and pitch in Guangzhou China. At the documentary festival’s pitching forum, it was their turn to pitch their projects before a panel including representatives from Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, National Geographic Channels International, PBS, NHK, ZDF-Arte, NDR/ARD, TVNZ, e.tv, Shanghai Radio and Documentary Channel, Phoenix Satellite TV and BBC Worldwide.

The past few months has seen The Moving Visuals Co. produce more in a genre we often don’t talk much about: SHORT FORM.
Although we’re known for our long form TV work, 2009 was a banner year of sorts with several projects.

Some highlights:

– “Crush” and “Believe” music videos
These were created to promote Fre3fall’s amazing collection of songs featured on The Band series.  Click to watch “Crush” (Directed by Vika Arliany) or “Believe” (Directed by Mak CK) or hop over to our videos > promos section.

– Woo-hoo! Screenwalkers – Disney Channel Asia
This campaign earned a Promax Asia Gold Award for Best Sting.  Congratulations to director Ronald Rillo, and thanks to all the nice folks at Disney Channel Asia.

– Gallery Hotel – The Hotel That Inspires TVC
This was done in a rush and aired regionally on Star World.  Did we mention that it’s a cool hotel.  Watch the 1 minute version on our video page.   The 30 sec version lurks out there on youtube.  We’ll get it posted right.  Music by Rai.

– Release Me music video –  Jack and Rai
An overnight shoot for Singapore’s best pop rock songwriters Jack and Rai.

Most of the above can be seen on our videos page in the promos section – so check them out.

Our inaugural drama event of the year “THE BAND” airs every Wed at 8pm on Okto from Jan 6 2010. Repeats on Sundays at 12.30 pm. The boys have received some great press in the papers and here on radio. Okto has a microsite here – nice job guys, so check it out.

For more updates on the band Fre3fall and their music- hop over to their facebook page here to view video links, and listen to song demos on their myspace page.

Fre3fall will be making appearances here and there – and did we mention that their soundtrack is excellent? Thanks to Jack and Rai for great songwriting.

Epic work by everyone involved. Kudos to all. Stay tuned for more news!