Mike Young’s Toon Aids China’s Earthquake Victims

Thursday, June 19, 2008
By: Ramin Zahed

Proceeds from a special screening of Mike Young Productions and Global Digital Creations’ Happy Little Submarines feature will be used to build new schools in earthquake-affected areas on China. Based on the studio’s Dive Olly Dive! animated series, the feature was released in over 260 Digital Cinema Multiplexes across China during the June 1 Children’s Day weekend, and received overwhelming box office response.

Over 113,000 admissions were tallied during the three-day opening weekend, with 100% of the film’s box office proceeds from the weekend donated by GDC towards the effort of rebuilding elementary schools damaged by the recent earthquakes in Sichuan, China.

“There is a huge amount of rebuilding that needs to happen in these damaged areas,” explains Catherine Xu, Deputy managing director at GDC. “We felt it was appropriate for us to apply the gains from this children’s film to help benefit kids in dire needs, like rebuilding their schools. With our employees’ donations and our opening weekend box office proceeds, we have raised enough money to rebuild one or two elementary schools in the earthquake devastated Sichuan region of China.”

“The scale of the disaster in China and the effect on many young children’s lives is hard to comprehend,” says Mike Young, co-founder and partner at MYP. “We experienced the terrible Northridge earthquake in California in 1994 and it is difficult to grasp that the Chinese quake was more than ten times greater. We’re just happy to be a part of the relief effort and doubly thrilled that our ‘little submarine that could’, Olly, created by Liverpool’s Andrew and Ian Ross in Wales, could bring some good to kids in China at this difficult time.”

The CG-animated feature is inspired by the kids’ property Dive Olly Dive! which follows the fun-filled underwater escapades of Olly and Beth, two young research submarines-in-training. Little Happy Submarines and Dive Olly Dive!” are a co-production of MYP, GDC, Flying Bark Productions of Australia, KI.KA, ARD of Germany and Telegael of Ireland.It is also produced with the support of the MEDIA Plus Program of the European Community. The series airs on PBS Sprout in the U.S. For more info, visit www.mikeyoungproductions.com

Reader Comments

• Mike Young : CEO : Mike Young Productions

  Friday, June 20, 2008

  Paddy, you picked the wrong studio to mess with. Yes there are overseas studios (as well as some Western ones) that are little more than overcrowded sweatshops, GDC is not one of them. \"Nike\" and \"Mattel\" and others may well have experienced criticism about using \"sweat shop\'s\", but in this case we have the opposite end of the spectrum, a studio full of highly educated highly trained creative individuals who are the cream of their particular work crop. Disney, Stars Media and ourselves have had a great experience at GDC. So Paddy your paddy was aimed at the wrong target. I am sure GDC as a class act would graciously accept your apologies.

• Catherine Xu : Deputy Managing Director : GDC

  Friday, June 20, 2008

  GDC\\\'s CG animation studio in Shenzhen is a spacious, 4-floor, modern building of approximately 60,000 sqft, housing over 350 CG animation artists and staff. It is located next to Shenzhen University in Nan Shan District, the most prestigious and cultured district in Shenzhen, China. This is what our studio looks like, inside and outside: http://sz.gdc-world.com/szidmt/szidmt_en/index.htm
  
  Most of our employees have college, graduate school and/or specialized art school degrees, and 90% of them were the elite graduates from IDMT\\\'s 9-month CG animation professional training program. In additional to high wages for these highly skilled and highly talented workforce, we provide comprehensive medical insurance, social security contribution, short-term and long-term disability benefits to all of our employees.
  
  The company also sponsors various employee organized sports teams, hobby clubs, team building events, continue learning programs to make our people engaged and excited about being part of the big GDC family. This shows what we like to do outside of work: http://sz.gdc-world.com/szidmt/company/assnlist.aspx
  
  Like most talent based, creative and hight tech companies, we work Monday through Friday, get the weekends off, and we do not work in \\\"shifts\\\" in case anyone is wondering.
  
  We do pull all nighters now and then, using our artists\\\' own words, \\\"not because we cannot finish on time, but because we think we can do better.\\\" We are passionate and excited about our work, we cannot help working hard. Here are the happy faces from the proud artists at the \\\"Happy Little Submarines\\\" premier: http://sz.gdc-world.com/szidmt/news/news_co_detail6329.html
  
  We welcome anyone who is concerned about our employees working condition to visit our studio. We also welcome anyone who is interested in joining us to visit us on our \\\"open house\\\" days, as we are growing, and we need many more talents in our effort of building the best CG animation studio in Asia.
  
  For anyone who wants to know more about GDC, please visit our website at www.gdc-world.com. Besides animation, we have other exciting businesses gong on to harness the rapidly growing entertainment and media market in China. For PR, business and partnership discussions, please contact me at catherine@gdc-world.com.