EXCLUSIVE: London- and Australia-based film and technology company Fablemaze has partnered with UK science fiction film festival Sci-Fi-London to host the 2022 Short Film Program on its new video hosting and annotation platform. The program has been extended to June 4.
Developed in-house at Fablemaze, the platform is designed to bridge the gap between premium content streaming services and online video platforms while also bringing a facility for filmmakers to add extras that commonly have appeared on DVDs. It’s described as “DVD meets Wikipedia meets Reddit, contained inside a single video player interface.”
“We built a platform that we wanted to use and felt was missing from the market,” said Fablemaze co-founder Matt Cook who is also the company’s Head of Technology. “The annotation tools on our platform add a user-friendly deep-dive video browsing experience to watching and publishing films. Sci-Fi-London could not be a better partner for our first public test – we’re thrilled and honored to be hosting the world-class shorts in the festival.”
Sci-Fi-London director Louis Savy added, “We are really excited to debut this technology with our short film program. Filmmakers have a lot of additional content surrounding their films and Fablemaze is the perfect place to showcase all those original assets and stories. The festival will also be using it to showcase the films made in their 48-hour film challenge, taking place 10-12 September 2022.”
Fablemaze features include extras that are accessible within the film, rich media annotations that open over the film (picture in picture) or as a non-invasive content side scroll including images, people, links, videos and more. There are also timecode-specific rich-media annotations that give users an opportunity to explore specific moments within the story.
The company is looking to bring more premium content to the new platform in the coming months as it develop the suite’s features and seeks partnerships with rights holders.
Fablemaze was formed in 2006 by Toby and Matt Cook, initially concentrating on technology R&D. It began producing movies in 2016. Credits include 2017 psychological thriller Eve which was acquired for global rights by Level 33 Entertainment in 2019. The company’s last film As I AM is available on Amazon and Sky Cinema.