courtesy of Qubo

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Qubo, the TV and online entertainment service for children and families, is delighted to announce that two aspiring young filmmakers from the Richmond metro area have created short animated films that will broadcast nationally on Qubo. Fauna Stiffler, of Midlothian, and Megan Deibel of Glen Allen, are two of twelve filmmakers nationwide whose films have been selected by Qubo to be converted and re-mastered into fully animated mini movies.  Beginning Thursday, December 4, Qubo will begin airing the movies on the “Qubo on ION TV” programming block on ION Television as well as on Qubo Channel. 

Stiffler, a sixth-grade student at Robious Middle School and Deibel,  a fourth-grade student at Three Chopt Elementary School, both created short animated films using an innovative storytelling web application on qubo.com called Zimmer Twins.  Nearly 44,000 aspiring young filmmakers from across the country have created Zimmer Twins movies on qubo.com since the application launched in December 2007 and twelve have now been selected for national broadcast.  Qubo producers re-mastered the films, converting them in high-resolution video with broadcast quality color, music and sound effects.  Qubo has also enlisted actors to record the character voices and narration created by the children in the text bubble script. 

Fauna Stiffler’s film, “Super 13 Saving the Day,”made its world television premiere on Thursday, Dec. 4 at approximately 3:40 p.m. on the “Qubo on ION TV” programming block on ION Television.  The film also aired on Qubo Channel on Dec. 4 at 4 p.m. and will air several times a day on Qubo Channel for one week.  The film also aired on the “Qubo on NBC” and “Qubo on Telemundo” (in Spanish)  programming blocks on Dec. 6 and 7 respectively.

Launched on qubo.com in the fall of 2007, the Zimmer Twins originated in Canada and remains one of the Canada’s most popular kids’ websites.  Winner of the 2007 International Interactive Emmy® Award, the Zimmer Twins, Edgar and Eva, are animated characters featured in interactive cartoons that kids can create from scratch, modify and share with their friends in a rich, safe Web environment.  The Zimmer Twins section on qubo.com includes storytelling tools, pre-made animated clips and simple editing instructions that tap into kids’ inherent love of stories.  The clips and storytelling prompts explore classic kid themes like science, animals, magic and adventure.  The animation interface is designed around the basic elements of sentence structure, and reinforces reading, grammar, and writing techniques. After creating their stories, users can post and share their creations and even vote for their favorite user-created submissions online.  The twelve best user-generated animations and creators have now been selected to be featured on Qubo with a new film debuting each week.

“We are thrilled to showcase the creativity of these talented children on our air,” said Rick Rodriguez, president and general manager, Qubo.  “The Zimmer Twins helps reinforce Qubo’s mission of engaging children’s minds while promoting reading and literacy. “Zimmer Twins is created by zinc Roe design, a company that specializes in advanced flash development and new media projects for children and youth.  The property is licensed to Qubo by Bejuba! Entertainment Inc.