Cinesite and 3QU Media today announced a major deal which will see Cinesite creating a slate of family-targeted animation features, the first of which will be Charming. 3QU Media is a newly formed CG-animated feature film production company, headed by John H. Williams, producer of Oscar®-winning Shrek and CEO of Vanguard Films and Animation (Valiant, Space Chimps) and Henry F. Skelsey (Managing Partner of Fulton Capital Management LLC).

Charming, produced by John Williams and directed by Ross Venokur (Animal Crackerz), is beginning production at Cinesite’s Montréal studios.  Charming is an irreverent animated comedy that re-imagines the tales of three iconic princesses: Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, who find they are all engaged to the same Prince Charming!

John Williams comments, “We are thrilled to be part of Cinesite’s major commitment to getting into the animation feature space.   We believe “Charming” can be a big commercial success and we hope this will be the beginning of a long time feature animation association between 3QU and Cinesite’s super talented artists, technicians, and production team.”

Cinesite Managing Director Antony Hunt says, “The deal with 3QU Media is the perfect fit for our overall animation strategy. They are wonderful partners and their slate of films are ideal projects for us.  Feature animation is a natural extension of our talent and infrastructure.  This deal is an important step in Cinesite’s overall strategy to create world class animated feature films and to develop our own creative intellectual property via Comic Animations, which we established to develop a slate of original animated films.”

Recently, Cinesite and Comic released their first animated short, Beans, which quickly became a massive online success, accumulating 11 million YouTube views and a gold award at the AEAF animation awards and the opening slot in the prestigious 2014 SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre.

Eamonn Butler, Animation Executive at Cinesite and Managing Partner of Comic, is spearheading the company’s move into animated features, having spent ten years previously at Disney as Animation Supervisor, with credits including Chicken Little, Reign of Fire and Fantasia 2000.  “We have been investigating the market for some time and our plan has always been to expand into feature animation at our Montréal and London studios.  Now we are building a substantial talent base with a world-class animation team.  We have some exciting times ahead.”

The new team includes the Line Producer for Charming, Victoria Itow-Tsering, whose credits include the Tinker Bell and Planes franchises for DisneyToons Studios.  Executive Producer Warren Franklin has over 25 years’ experience producing feature animation and visual effects, having previously been the founder and CEO of Rainmaker Entertainment and held key roles at Lucasfilm and ILM.  Animation Director Jason Ryan joins with a long list of credits including Big Hero 6, Shrek 4 and Kung Fu Panda 2.  Howard E. Baker is another addition to the team and a major asset for the studio, having directed The Reef, The Jim Henson Company’s Unstable Fables and Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers.

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