SPAA 2007…Gold Coast Australia… Nov 07 

Another spectacular SPAA conference. This year saw Cate and Jenny producing the ‘ready steady pitch session, an introduction to Sebastian Debertin from KI.KA, follow ups with Scott Dyer from Corus/Treehouse and the beginning of a co pro conversation with Steven DeNure from Decode entertainment.

Cate and North Coast Documentary Guru, Cathy Henkel
smiling in the sun at the Sheraton Mirage.

Deirdre Brennan from Nickelodeon Aus and Dea Perez from Discovery Kids US. Are they twins, separated at birth???

Nerida O’Loughlin, Jenny Lalor, Cate, Deirdre Brennan and Kristy Phelan…collectively a bevy of Australia movers and shakers.

Mipcom 2007

Cate and Hewey travelled to France in October for Mipcom 07.
Cannes was at its best with spectacular weather, the sparkling sea and a sensational television market. But it wasn’t all meetings.

Cate and Hewey enjoyed the company of BBC worldwide at a rooftop BBQ, the launch of ‘east of everything’ on a magnificent yacht as the sun set over Cannes, finger food from Lebanon, pizzas with Cake, a taste of India and having a grand old time.

In between Cannes and London they headed bush.
Well as bush as you can get in the South of France.
They relaxed amongst the gorges and lakes, shopped at the local market, cheered for the rugby world Cup at the local pub and made new friends.

London saw more days of meetings, a quick trip to Brixton and some silliness in Hamleys toy store.

Cate and Hewey with Bert and Ernie a long way from Sesame Street  in Cannes	Cate, Hewey and Jenny saying   ‘fromage’
Hewey and Michael Bourchier	Hewey teaches the locals Khe Sanh on bouzouki.
Carla de Jong, Joel Kohn and Michael.	Congratulating Tim Brook Hunt on his new job as Head Honcho of Children’s at the ABC
Celebrating ‘East of Everything’ in style.
Deb Cox, Tim and Cate …. as the sunsets.	Joel and Hewey at the opening night party …a taste of India
The usual suspects having a Grand time	Tom Van Waveren and Hewey intently watching tricks with cutlery.
In the South of France
Jenny and Hewey in London.

mememe mentor

We are proud to announce that Daniel Besen has agreed to mentor mememe productions and guide us as we navigate our way through the creative business of producing children's content.

Daniel joins the team and brings with him a wealth of knowledge, experience and a remarkable generosity of spirit.

Daniel Besen is an experienced entrepreneur who is driven by the desire to leverage his skills and network to enable dynamic businesses to realise their full potential. He has a passion for working with innovative and creative people who have the ambition to take their ventures to the next level.

Daniel's investments to date, which include MIMCO, Seek, SABA and Boost, clearly demonstrate his strategic value.

Before founding Nesher Development Capital, a venture capital company in 2000, Daniel practised as a lawyer with Arnold Bloch Leibler.

Daniel recently sold SABA, the iconic Australian fashion label. He developed SABA as a thriving fashion house, building on the strong foundations of an already well-established brand. In 2005, SABA boasts 20 retail stores and 10 David Jones' concession stores nationally.

Under Daniel’s directorship, MIMCO has evolved from a wholesale focussed business to a significant vertical retailer. Over the past 3 years, MIMCO has developed a retail store network of 17 stores and has placed 10 custom designed concept areas in selected David Jones stores nationally.

Boost is Australia’s most successful juice bar franchise with over 170 stores and $100million annual turnover. Daniel is actively involved in building the Boost business and brand together with its founder, Janine Allis.

In the Besen family businesses, Daniel has held the positions of Executive Director of TarraWarra Estate, an established vineyard and winery, since the early 1990’s, and Highpoint Shopping Centre, the largest shopping complex in Melbourne's west. Daniel has recently managed the successful sale of a half interest in Highpoint to GPT for $621m.

With a passion for art and the arts, since 1992 Daniel has sponsored the Roger Kemp Memorial Prize, a yearly prize awarded to final year arts students at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Daniel has also held the positions of Director of the Jewish Museum of Australia, the Melbourne International Arts Festival and Heide Art Gallery, and for 6 years was the Chair of Chunky Move, Victoria's most innovative contemporary dance company.

Hackett Films Join Forces with mememe.

James Hackett from Hackett Films and responsible for the sensational award winning ‘Dissociatives’ music video clips and Andrew Denton’s ‘Enough Rope’ titles, has joined forces with mememe productions to produce the first ever ‘dirtgilrworld’ music video.

James popped up to mememe headquarters in late July to talk about the project and get to see first hand where Cate and Hewey are coming from. It was an exciting couple of days talking, and dreaming just how ‘dirtgirl’ will be actualized in an animated world. Tamsin Smyth and Matt Mooney joined in the pow wow

Back in Sydney the Hackett film team is busy working on ‘Go get grubby’ for release later in the year. As well as a stand along clip it will form the visual backbone of the dirtgirlworld marketing package. mememe have developed a musicentric garden focused animated/live action hybrid series for the 3-6 year old audience.These 40X 6 minute episodes will be supported by an interactive online world. mememe productions will take the project to the world at the SPAA conference in November and The Kidscreen Summit in New York in Feb 2007.

Deb Cox has happily agreed to be the projects script editor while Burberry productions dive in again as Executive Producers.

As well as creating the animated environment of dirtgirlworld, hackett films will also be involved in the production of music clips, animation graphics and titles and even the odd spot of live direction for ‘hit it!’

You can see Jame’s extraordinary work at www.hackettfilms.com.au

Back to Toronto

Heading to Toronto to speak at ICE 07 Cate wasted no time catching up with Canadian friends. The Conference was awesome. Dan Fill from ABC Australia confused a Coppola who thought he was from ABC America and as such…. a big time industry sucker of the independent producer. Glad they sorted it out!

Cate got to catch her first Ice hockey match….not a big sport in Northern NSW…and landed herself a puck.

…..which she donated to the Kim Wilson’s Ice Hockey memorabilia collection.

Partying with Marblemedia, singing karaoke and meeting awesome digital media folk…what better way to spend time in Toronto.

Travels - Toronto and New York

Toronto trip

Cate took a trip to Toronto to check out the town and catch up with some friends.

First port of call was Niagara Falls a very different winter experience and very different from the Niagara Falls we see in the movies. Rather than the 100s of tourists usually found surrounding the falls Cate got to experience this natural phenomenon with just eight other people.With temperatures around -15C and rugged up to the max Cate and Kim Wilson enjoyed the day and took heaps of happy snaps.

A visit to the marblemedia headquarters was next on the list.

Having met the marblemedia crew at many conferences and events, Cate was excited see where the gang hang out….and she wasn’t disappointed. The remodeled historical building housed the enthusiastic team and the working environment was sensational. Mark Bishop also shared the Toronto night life with Cate, who felt very much at home in the city. They worked out that they now have shared meals together in Sydney, Cannes, New York and Toronto.

Then it was up the CN tower…the tallest tower in the world…to grab a bird’s eye view of a snow covered and icy Toronto.

Finishing up with a Canadian feast in the revolving restaurant… it was a great way to enjoy Toronto.

A visit to the CBC and Kim Wilson’s children’s television department uncovered an interesting fact. Kim Wilson has the most toys in the world!

Well if not now, she sure is well on her way. What fun to meet and talk about dirtgirlworld on tiny chairs at a tiny table under Ernie’s watchful eye.

Left alone for a few minutes Cate captured some of the toy highlights to share an insight into the real Kim.

Next stop New York

Cate returned to New York and enjoyed a few days shopping, v isiting galleries and seeing Broadway musicals before the Jennies arrived.

Jenny, ‘Princess of Justice’, Lalor and Jenni ‘Rockefeller’ Tosi joined Cate in the city that never sleeps.

It was all go go go, freezing cold and massive fun!

Hanging out in Times Square...

Squirrels...

Bears...

Avenue...

...MOMA ...for a MOMA sundae, oh and the art too

Website Update - January 3, 2007

Singing in Heaven

An essential and exciting element of ‘dirtgirlworld’ is the music.
The impetus for the dirtgirlworld project is the initial album and how it was received when released. The industry loved it
but more importantly, the kids that have the CD are a passionate, loyal and obsessive gang.

Hewey Eustace teamed up with Paul Agar at ‘Heaven Studios’ in Ashby in the Northern Rivers Region of NSW to re-record ‘Go get Grubby’.

Originally from New Zealand via Melbourne, Paul settled in the region, built Heaven Studios and quickly made his mark as a leading music producer, writer and engineer.
Cate popped in to lay down the vocals and the result is a power packing, guitar driven indie kid song that is sure to knock their little socks off.

Kids in the garden

In October, as the jacarandas bloomed in Grafton, filming got underway at the mememe headquarters. Georgia, Ruby and Lucy Hackett were joined by Ben and Dominique Jones to show just what kids get up to in the garden.

We were filming the live action inserts for the ‘Go get grubby” Clip. In stark contrast to the week before at Engine Studios in Sydney, this shoot was full of sunshine, low tech and hand held cameras.

Shot by Aliison Kelly, Hewey Eustace and Cate McQuillen the kids and garden starred. The live action in ‘dirtgirlworld’ reflects what real kids in the real world get up to outside.

SPAA fringe, Big SPAA and the IF Awards

Cate was chuffed to be an invited speaker at SPAA fringe at the powerhouse in Brisbane. Her first time at the conference, she was overwhelmed with the enthusiasm and generosity of spirit that abounded.

Cate found that hanging out with people with great ideas, a willingness to learn and a commitment to build the future screen industries was incredibly inspiring.

Teaming up with Cathy Henkle, the two delivered a session full of big ideas, new ideas and positivity entitled from ‘Pitch to Hit!’

Aimee Atkins successfully pitched ‘Game on’ at the Griffith Fringe Pitching competition, winning first place and free entry into Big SPAA.

Click here for more about Game On !

Big SPAA
The 2006 Screen producers Association of Australia Conference
Sheraton Mirage
Gold Coast

This year’s big SPAA adventure saw Jenny Lalor and Cate hosting the ready steady pitch session, Cate speaking at the ‘reason’s to be cheerful’ session and Cate and Hewey performing at drinks around the pool.

There were meetings galore, dinner at Versace’s and a sneak peak preview of ‘dirtgirlworld.

The 33 second clip caused quite a stir and mememe can’t wait to share the whole clip at the Kidscreen conference in New York in February. With 21 executives, 120 individual pitches and and 70 delegates, the smooth running Ready Steady Pitch session proved to be a big hit.

There was a real sense of positivity and just the right amount of showbiz. Jenny and Cate are looking forward to working on this again in the future.

Hosted by Ewan Burnett, Kim Wilson from CBC, Cherrie Bottger from Network 10, Jenny Buckland from the ACTF, Katie Cordes from the ABC and Cate McQuillen from mememe shared their reasons to be cheerful about the kids industry and visions for the future in a lively session.

Hewey and Cate once again enjoyed themselves and made the most of this valuable event.

2006 IF Awards.

The IF awards, a glittery event held at the Gold coast convention centre, was the culmination the 2006 SPAA conference

Lady in Red; Jenny Lalor, sat up the front and accepted the SPAA producer of the year award on behalf of April Films while the rest of us were up the back in the bleachers with our box dinners.

It was fun to celebrate the year’s releases and try and explain our films and stars to the out of towners.

Kim Wilson from the Canadian Broadcast Commission, Jay Ward from Pixar and his wife Trish had a great night , while Aliison Kelly rubbed shoulders with the A-listed, David Wenham

Archived February 2007

SPAA Brunch - July 2006

In late July, Cate headed to Clunes to Cathy Henkel and Jeff Canin’s Hatchling Production headquarters. Here producers from the North Coast region gathered to yak about the possibility of starting a local SPAA chapter. Geoff Brown, the Executive Director of SPAA and SPAA president Trish Lake attended. They talked about current industry issues, chin wagged with each other and munched out on a brunchy feast

As you can see from the photo ,Leonie has doubled in height since moving to the coast and Geoff Brown has a positively angelic hue….or is it an aura?

It was a great gathering with promise of more to come.

SPAA Conference 06

Cate McQuillen from mememe productions and Jenny Lalor from Burberry Productions will be producing two sessions at this years SPAA conference on the Gold coast in November.

Entitled Ready, Steady..Pitch! these session promise to be great fun and of great value.

Ready, Steady..Pitch!

One room, eight experts, three minutes and you!

Ready, Steady... Pitch! your project the best way that you can, to an industry bigwig in three incredibly quick minutes... no more, no less.

This is a no mucking around arena of networking opportunity.

Choose to pitch to a broadcaster, commissioner, distributor, telco, financier or digital media leader from the array of amazing guests at the conference. This is a 3 minutes face off to share an idea, build a network, receive feedback and enhance the SPAA conference experience.

There will be 2 Ready, Steady... Pitch!sessions.

One will focus on Children's projects and one will focus on Adult drama. There are no hoops, no prizes, no audience and no applause but you end up the winner.

To find out more details and how to book a pitching spot, go to http://www.spaa.org.au/conference_2006/index.cfm?dx=blank&contentid=450

Xmedialab professional day

In August Cate traveled to Melbourne for the 2006 xmedialab professional day. Focusing on Media Mobility guests included

Brad Keeling from Slice Wireless,
Siddharth Jain from Playware Studios of Asia,
Jakomi Mathews from Rock Sound,
Courtney Gibson from Arts and Entertainment at ABC TV and
Elina Koivisto from the Nokia Research Centre in Finland.

The stand out presentation, for Cate, was from Chloe Sladden from Current TV. This predominately user generated content site is mind blowing.

It has a great financial model in place and divides users into programmers and producers allowing the online community to ‘green light’ stories.

Initiated by Al Gore ‘current TV’ targets a youth audience.

It is mind blowing!

Check it out for yourself at www.current.tv

Once again the team at xmedialab, Brendan Harkin and Megan Elliot presented an unforgettable and invaluable conference day. http://www.xmedialab.com.au/

THE FIRST OF THE HIT IT HITS! – SEPTEMBER 2005

Hewey spent time at Eastern Block studios in Melbourne with Cameron McKenzie working on the Hit it TV music. Incorporating a skipping rope and a cardboard box, the guitar pop, Skip Hop, was the resulting creation.

INTERNSHIP – NOVEMBER 2005

Aliison Kelly, one of our producers, has scored an internship from the AFC to work with Jenny Lalor and Ewan Burnett from Burberry Productions to enhance her creative producing skills. Aliison will travel down to Melbourne during the pre-production stage of “Animalia”.

This is a great opportunity for a regional producer to work closely on a large animation production. Skills learnt during this time will be used to help in the development of Hit it!

Mip TV 06

Cate enjoyed a flying visit to Cannes for Mip TV 06. Accompanied by Ewan Burnett and Jenny Lalor from Burberry Productions and hit it’s new supervising producer Jenni Tosi, they attended a myriad of meetings, events and conference sessions. The team caught up with the Marblemedia gang to talk about co-pro details; broadcasters to discuss deals; digital media companies to chat about all the cool stuff and the Nerd Corp chaps for what is becoming a regular market dinner date. The gang also attended the Australian Film Commission drinks at their stand which was a wonderful networking opportunity and fun to boot!

Photos from Mip

Jenni Tosi, Matt Hornberg and Mark Bishop from Marblemedia.

Jenny and Steve Comeau from Canada.

Jenni at the ACTF stand.

Jenny and the Moshi guys, Andrew Davies and Michael Amos.

MiP TV Gallery: Cannes, France… April 2005

April …landed in London and stepped into every high school history lesson for real! Such a familiar foreign country. A few days to sightsee and for the body to catch up and then on to Nice and Cannes for the conference. Mip Tv!

As first time participants we were amazed at the magnitude of this market. The multi storied building with its hierarchical pavilions from the smoky bunker to the spectacular views from private network restaurants and bars and where, in every corner people talked television. We met in pavilions, stands, cafes, on yachts, in corridors, over dinner and on dance floors. It is staggering the number of participants, exhibitors and the range and volume of product that is currently in the market.

Hung out with fabulous Australians… the inimitable Ewan Burnett, the gang from GirlfridayTV, Steve Kearny and Leanne Tonks from Mini Studios, Cynthia Connop and Jacqui North.

Back to London for a bit then 33 hours to Home!!!
Great business, great scenery, great world.

It was great!

Images

Kidscreen New York - March 2006

Keep spreading the news

Cate and Aliison have just returned from the 7th Annual Kidscreen conference where they wined and dined and bowled their way around New York. It was Aliison’s first trip to the Big Apple, which is evident in the sheer amount of photos she took to capture the two weeks.

The conference was a positive experience that shook Aliison’s world.

It was Cate’s third visit and the staggering amount of projects, delegates (over 1000) and broadcasters didn’t seem to faze her. Once again hit it! was met enthusiastically by broadcasters and digital media partners. There has been an obvious shift in the traditional broadcasters view and knowledge of innovative, multi delivery projects since mememe won best pitch presentation at Kidscreen 2004. Kidscreen 2006 confirmed that hit it! is a unique and timely project and that the new, bold and brave approach to programming sees the world ready for the hit it! onslaught.

What Now

With bags packed again, Cate, along with the Burberry crew and new supervising producer, Jenni Tosi, is off to Cannes, in the first week of April, to attend Mip TV. The team will follow up on the follow-up meetings Cate followed up on, at Kidscreen. Everything is in place and the team is ready to do business.

But there’s more

The Dirtgirl pages have been updated by the creative and genuinely best web programmer ever, Karl Williams, and are worth a look.

In fact if you haven’t heard the CD then you’ve got no excuse, as now there’s an order form attached for ‘dirtgirlworld’.

Photos from New York

New York Financial District.

Aliison at Kidscreen.

Cate at Kidscreen.

Off to bowling in the back of a limo.

Streets of New York.

mememe Big Update™ 23/12/2005

AFTRS LAMP – OCTOBER 2005

The intrepid mememe team traveled to Victor Harbour for the first AFTRS LAMP residential. Jake, Karl and Cate spent a week with seals, dolphins and penguins delving into the online component of Hit it, Hit it Now!

Highlights of the week included meeting Catherine Gleeson from Platform 09; Tony Surtees from the Santa Clara Group; Ric Holland from Extreme iMedia; Raffi Krikorian from Synthesis Studios; Christy Dena and smarty pants Arse. It also gave the team the opportunity to spend time with Mark Pesce and to talk intensively about the online vision.

For more information visit the website http://lamp.aftrs.edu.au/

MIPCOM – OCTOBER 2005

Straight from LAMP the irrepressible Cate took off for Cannes to attend Mipcom with Ewan Burnett and Jenny Lalor from Burberry Productions. Cate attended the Mipcom intercontinental dinner as a guest of the AFC and enjoyed immensely the annual ACTF dinner – they rock!

A flurry of meetings, dinners and parties took Hit it! to the international market, making new friendships and renewing past connections.

A quick stop over in London to meet with the BBC concluded what can only be called a highly successful conference.

Cate, Ewan and Jenny in Cannes.

Cate doing mean things to time in Greenwich.

tedhead goes to Stonehenge.

DOLPHIN AWARDS – NOVEMBER 2005

Cate and Hewey recently judged the children’s music category at the 2005 Dolphin music awards. In 2002 they were awarded the Dolphin for Best Album, for their highly contagious children’s album Dirt Girl World. You can purchase the album at www.windsong.com.au.

Attending the awards at the beach hotel, Cate caught up with Martin Corbin, Northern Rivers ABC 2NR station manager and celebrated the plethora of awesome music that emanates from the region.

Congratulations to Felicity Burdett who won the 2005 best album award for The Love Bus. Check out her website at www.thelovebus.com.au.

Cate and Martin enjoy the Dolphin awards.

MEDIA WORKS – DECEMBER 2005

Cate caught up with Nic McMahon – Crawford CEO, Head honcho of Saddleclub and collector of dolls at the recent Mediaworks held in Byron Bay by Northern Rivers Screenworks Ltd. As a guest speaker Cate got to yak about cross platform innovations, new delivery modes and how ace the North Coast is for hours… which always keeps her happy. During Cate’s research she came across a number of great sites worth checking out if you’re interested in cross platforms.

Click here to download out the list.

What a doll!

Office Opening

mememe productions recently launched their newly renovated office. Jenny Lalor from Burberry Productions, executive producer, flew up from Melbourne to enjoy the festivities with some of the local Northern Rivers crew. mememe are now waiting on the arrival of the HiBis satellite dish to compliment their funky new working conditions.

‘Hit it!’ is powering

Along with seven other innovative Australian projects, it has been accepted into the ground breaking Australian Film Television and Radio School’s project… LAMP. ( www.lamp.aftrs.edu.au ) This Laboratory for Advanced Media Projects sees Cate McQuillen, Jake Carroll and Karl Williams heading to Victor Harbour, in SA, for an intensive week long residential where they will rub shoulders with Australia’s leading new media gurus. The aim is to walk away with proto-types of the new media involved in ‘Hit it!’ and form networks in this burgeoning new media world.

Leaving LAMP, Cate continues the journey, traveling to MIPCOM in Cannes in France.

Meanwhile back on the North Coast, co-producer Hewey Eustace is back from studio time in Melbourne.

Local producer Aliison Kelly has received an AFC internship to travel to Melbourne and work with Burberry Productions, the Executive Producers of ‘Hit it!’ and award winning children’s television production house.

So with bags packed the enthusiastic ‘hit it!’ team is hitting the road.