CBC has picked up KGP Films’ eight-part digital series NarcoLeap. The sci-fi series is now available to stream via the CBC TV app and cbc.ca/watch. Vancouver’s Chelsey Reist (The 100) plays the lead role of Kelsey Atkins, a young woman suffering from narcolepsy, who finds herself thrust into a world of espionage when she discovers that during her lucid dreams she is actually commandeering the bodies of real people across the globe. NarcoLeap was funded by the Independent Production Fund, Telus STORYHIVE, and Creative BC, and developed through the Women In The Director’s Chair (WIDC) program.
Women on Screen is accepting submissions for its Web Series Incubator, a six-week development program for short web series featuring female-driven content. Eight scripts and writers/writing teams will be selected to participate, Sept. 25 – Oct. 30 in Toronto. More details here.
The Movember Foundation has premiered a documentary series on Instagram’s new IGTV platform, sharing the real life challenges of men living with prostate and testicular cancer. The group is the first charity to launch an exclusive docu-series using IGTV, which allows users the opportunity to watch long-form video, up to an hour long, from within the Instagram app. A new video in the series debuted daily on their channel for five days, starting Aug. 3.
musical.ly and TikTok are uniting to create a new short form video platform. The upgraded global app keeps the TikTok name, incorporating the most popular elements of both apps with a feed that highlights the users’ community, in addition to a “For You” feed offering curated personalized video recommendations. It also plans to introduce a “reaction” feature that allows users to react to friends’ videos, VR-type filters that can be activated just by blinking, and green screen-like background effects.
Snapchat’s daily users fell two per cent to 188 million from 191 million in the last quarter, the first time Snap has logged a quarterly drop. Still, the company reported second quarter revenues of $262.3 million, up 44 per cent over the same period last year. CEO Evan Spiegel blames falling user numbers on lower frequency of use due to the disruption caused by the app’s redesign.
Apple, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Pinterest, LinkedIn and MailChimp have banned content from U.S. conspiracy theorist and right wing talk show host Alex Jones saying it violates community standards. Downloads of Jones’ Infowars app surged following the news, with the app currently the number three news app in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, according to data ranking site App Annie. As Canada’s Rebel Media nears the 1 million subscriber mark on YouTube, founder Ezra Levant proclaimed on Twitter Wednesday that as the largest news channel in Canada, he expects Justin Trudeau to “try to shut us down Infowars-style.” Rebel Media contributor John Cardillo called the move by the social platform giants “chilling” saying while he’s not a fan of Jones, he will “fight till the end for Alex Jones’ right to disseminate his content.” Facebook says Infowars glorified violence, violating its graphic violence policy, and used dehumanizing language or “hate speech” to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants.
