Arts and Culture : Innovation + Job News

Peku Publications recently published its first two electronic books, and plans to publish four more by the end of this year. The online publishing company, affiliated with a Baltimore accelerator, is also kicking off a marketing analysis this summer to grow readership of its 23 free online magazines. 
 
The two e-books are “Entertaining with PKP,” recipes for cocktails and appetizers; and “Beyond Cats & Dogs: A Guide to Unique Pets.”
 
Both topics were chosen because of their popularity in the online magazines, says CEO and Editor Michele Pesula Kuegler, who is married to Tom "TK" Kuegler, co-founder and general partner of Wasabi Ventures LLC. The books are sold for Nook and Kindle on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com at $4.99 each.
 
Kuegler took over Peku Publications in 2008, which was launched that year under the name of Wasabi Media Group. It was renamed Peku last year.
 
Based in Manchester, N.H., Peku Publications is a portfolio company of Wasabi Ventures, a venture capital firm that partnered with Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore last year to create the Wasabi Ventures Accelerator.
 
Peku Publications received engineering and design support from Wasabi Ventures, and uses Wasabi Ventures interns on as-needed basis for business and marketing anaylsis. It has also used interns from Loyola’s English department for editing and writing.
 
Kuegler has grown the publication from five freelance writers and 20 articles per week to 20 freelancers, two editors and 100 articles per week in 23 online publications for a national audience.
 
“We have new, original content every weekday from experts in their fields,” she says of the publications on health and fitness, home and garden, entertaining and other lifestyle topics.
 
Peku Publications claims 1.7 million readers per month. The privately owned company has a revenue-based advertising model. Kuegler says that from 2009 to 2010, ad revenue grew by 639 percent; from 2010 to 2011, by 220 percent; and from 2012 to 2013, an expected 125 percent.
 
This summer’s marketing analysis will examine the current publications, what’s popular and look for ways to provide more in-depth content within the context of the current model.
 
Source: Michele Pesula Kuegler, Peku Publications
Writer: Barbara Pash

Baltimore’s Taharka Bros. Ice Cream is launching a Kickstarter campaign June 12 to raise $35,000 for their new “Vehicle for Change” food truck. And a new movie by Oscar-nominated directors will document their effort in a new, yet-to-be named movie that highlights businesses that support social change.
 
“We don’t have a retail shop and a lot of people ask us to have a retail shop or ask how to get our ice cream,” Taharka CEO De'Von Brown says. “So this is a way for us to reach our audience, to have something that’s out in the community.”
 
Taharka Bros. serve up more than just the typical cookies and cream ice cream flavors. They serve what they call “food for thought,” flavors based on social movements. Their goal is to spread the message of inspiring movements and people in history through ice cream, such as a flavor named after Langston Hughes’ poem, “A Dream Deferred.”
 
Taharka has had a presence at festivals such as the Baltimore Book Festival and Artscape. They have also held events at their factory in Hampden, Baltimore and their products are available at over 65 restaurants in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. But a food truck will allow it to make appearances at more festivals, corporate events and colleges.
 
“Hopefully the food truck will be a way to reach people in terms of a physical one-to-one type of outreach. It’s a community outreach vehicle,” Taharka Creative Director Darius Wilmore says.
 
Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, who directed “Detropia” and “The Boys of Baraka,” have just wrapped up filming of a yet-to-be named movie on Taharka’s Kickstarter campaign. The movie will be featured at the Tribeca Film Festival next spring. The movie will also document Taharka’s collaboration with actress and comedienne Rain Pryor to craft a flavor named after her late father Richard Pryor, whose comedy often addressed class and race. The flavor is tentatively being titled “A Richard Pryor Moment.”

Writer: Daryl Hale
Sources: De'Von Brown and Darius Wilmore, Taharka Bros. 

The Charm City Fringe Festival will encompass more venues and showcase more  performances when it returns in November.

This year, the festival will expand from a weekend festival to a five-day event mainly in the Station North Arts and Entertainment neighborhood. The festival will hold its main productions at the Theatre Project in Mount Vernon and at Single Carrot Theatre, says Co-founder Zachary Michel. He says he expects to attract between 1,000 and 1,500 attendees to the paid performances, and additional guests for the opening and closing parties.
 
The Fringe Festival’s goal is to highlight performance art in a range of genres, from plays to dance and burlesque. The Fringe Festival is different from other Maryland festivals because of its unique purpose to promote the “fringe,” or works that are not mainstream or well known. Michel says the festival was able to expand this year because it added three volunteers who are in charge of production and marketing.
 
Also new this year is the system that Michel and co-founder Michael Brush are using to find acts. Instead of booking performances, artists can now apply online at charmcityfringe.com by June 15.
 
Participants in Charm City Fringe Festival will have access to a performance space as well as promotion and marketing via the festival for just an application and production fee.
 
The festival aims to foster a community of theater performers, from up-and-coming companies to smaller groups, looking for the opportunity to reach a broader audience. Michel says that he hopes by bringing a diverse audience of established performance artists as well as young artists, the festival will allow new performers to network and establish valuable connections.
 
“We’re expanding our reach, we’re expanding the amount of artists that we’re taking in, we’re trying to bring more people in and overall just build up the scope,” Michel says.
 
Those interested in attending the festival can purchase tickets online as well as at the box office.

“I think that [attendees] are going to find that there’s just a lot that they didn’t know was going on and really discovering a new side of Baltimore so to speak,” Michel says. “To new art, to new people, to new rumblings that are going on that are going to be emerging in the next couple years.”

Writer: Daryl Hale
Source: Zachary Michel, Charm City Fringe Festival 

As the summer tourist season gets underway, Fort McHenry last week added another attraction. For the first time, visitors to the national landmark located in South Baltimore will get the same view of the fort —from the water —  that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem during the War of 1812’s Battle of Baltimore.
 
The Fort McHenry Boat Tour: A Star-Spangled Experience runs every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, through Sept. 15 and is expected to return next summer. Seven tours depart daily, on the hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tours leave from the Fort McHenry Pier at 2400 East Fort Ave.
 
The 45-minute narrated tour recounts Key’s experience during September 1814. There are “special audio effects. We’ve got all the bells and whistles, bombs and music,” says Lisa Lynn Hansen, director of Friends of Fort McHenry, a nonprofit that works with the National Park Service to provide educational programs and living history activities.
 
The Friends of Fort McHenry, Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine, Living Classrooms Foundation and Baltimore Water Taxi partnered to create the tour, which is expected to be an annual summertime offering.

A $33,000 grant from the the state's Maryland War of 1812 Commission funded the effort. Students from the Baltimore School for the Arts narrate the tour while El-J Productions produced the script and sound effects. Baltimore Water Taxi is providing the 49-passenger boats under a charter arrangement with Friends of Fort McHenry.
 
Fort McHenry drew 850,000 visitors last year. Hansen says the main challenge in arranging the boat tour was setting the length of the tour.  “We didn’t want to take them out on the water too long. They’ve come to tour the fort and this is an add-on,” she says.
 
Friends also wanted to make the boat tour affordable. Visitors can walk around the grounds of the fort for free. A tour of the fort costs $7 per adult, children under age 16 are free. The boat tour costs $10 per adult (age 11 and up) and $5 per child (ages 3 to 10). Tickets are sold at dockside on a first-come, first-serve basis.
 
Source: Lisa Lynn Hansen, Friends of Fort McHenry
Writer: Barbara Pash

Baltimore’s underground band scene and city kids on dirt bikes are among the themes featured in movies with local ties at this year’s Maryland Film Festival. Taking place May 8-12, the festival will host 50 features and 80 short films.
 
The following movies have local ties:
•  Matthew Porterfield’s “I Used to Be Darker,” which was filmed in Hamilton, Roland Park and Ocean City and has won festival awards in Nashville and Buenos Aires;
• “Hit & Stay,” which tells the story of priests and nuns in Catonsville who challenged U.S. intervention in Vietnam;
• “12 O’Clock Boys,” a documentary about a Baltimore dirt-bike rider, which just won the HBO Emerging Artist Award;
• “If We Shout Loud Enough,” a movie on Baltimore’s underground music scene and the band Double Dagger; and,
• “I Am Divine,” a documentary on the legendary drag icon that features interviews with John Waters.
 
The film festival added an extra day of movies in response to demand from the audience, says Maryland Film Festival Director Jed Dietz. Many people were turned away from films they wanted to see so festival organizers added more screening times.
 
Gabriel DeLoach, one of the filmmakers behind “If We Shout Loud Enough,” says the movie highlights the great music coming out of Baltimore.
 
“There’s a lack of cutthroat-ness and everyone is really encouraging of one another. There’s all these opportunities for musicians to put themselves out there.”
 
DeLoach lives in Charlottesville and became familiar with Double Dagger and other bands while attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. The band will be present for a Q&A after its Saturday evening screening. 

Says DeLoach, "It's a film made in Baltimore about one of Baltimore's best bands, so I think its only fitting that it screens there."



Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Jed Dietz, Maryland Film Festival; Gabriel DeLoach

Baltimore news station WBAL-TV recently signed an agreement with New Jersey's Dyle mobile TV to bring live broadcast programming to viewers who want to watch news and other programs on their cell phones. The move will help the local NBC affiliate expand its reach and stay ahead of the competition with new technologies. 

Roger Keating, senior vice president of digital media for WBAL parent Hearst Television Inc., says the technology will be available by the end of this year. 

Dyle mobile TV operates through a receiver accessory, sold for $84.98 on Amazon.com and other outlets. The accessory, about the size of a matchbox, has an antennae. It plugs into a smart phone or tablet, turning it into a television. Dyle technology is available now for iPhones and will be ready for Android devices in a few months.

“The worst case scenario is that it wouldn't begin until the end of this year,” Keating says. The timeframe depends on the engineering work, like upgrading WBAL's transmission tower, that is needed to implement mobile TV.

Dan Joerres, president and general manager of WBAL-TV, calls Dyle mobile TV the "next step" in television technology. "The intent is to build another product for our consumers," he says.

"We are trying to build a network in a market. Maybe there will be other TV networks in Baltimore that will have [mobile TV] in the future."

Indeed at least one already has. Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc. said earlier this month that it is doing so in 10 of its stations, including WBFF Fox 45, in the next six months.

Mobile Content Ventures, a partnership of 12 major broadcast companies, operates Dyle mobile TV. Keating says Hearst TV already transmits the Dyle service to three of its stations, in Cincinnati, Greenville, S.C.; and Orlando, Fla.

 
Sources: Roger Keating, Hearst TV; Dan Joerres, WBAL-TV
Writer: Barbara Pash

Butchers Hill web design and development firm Fastspot LLC is expanding. The company is adding a new department in analytics and search optimization to boost its marketing support for clients and will hire four employees to add to its staff of 14 over the next six months. It is looking for web developers and designers and project managers, President Tracey Halvorsen says.
 
The company is also adding new features to its free open source content management system, BigTree, to make it more efficient. The Butchers Hill web design and development company's updated product will be available this summer to the web community through its own website and that of BigTree’s.
 
“Anyone who wants to use it can,” Halvorsen says.
 
Fastspot introduced BigTree as open source software last year, where it turned out to be popular among higher educational institutions and museums. Halvorsen says the new features are being developed but declined to specify them as they are still being developed. She says the company will continue to sell it as part of a project.
 
“But we don’t want clients to feel locked into it and we want to see what others in the design and development community do with it,” she says.

Halvorsen says the company will roll out its new department over that timeframe. The department’s services will be offered on an hourly fee basis. The department comes in response to client request.
 
“After we launch a website, it’s important to know who is coming to the site, is the content performing as well as it should and is the structure of the site working?” she says.
 
Fastspot has a national client base of higher educational institutions, cultural institutions, nonprofits and museums. They include Bucknell University, Tufts University, Johns Hopkins University and the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
 
Fastspot doesn’t take on projects of less than $50,000. Large projects can cost $200,000 to $500,000 and take from nine months to two years. Most higher education clients’ projects run in the six figures, she says. Fees are based on an hourly rate and annual maintenance contracts are available.
 
Fastspot was founded in 2001. Halvorsen says revenue at the privately funded company has increased by at least 10 percent per year since founding.
 
Source: Tracey Halvorsen, Fastspot LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is more than halfway to reaching its capital campaign goal of raising $6 million to fund its move to a new home in downtown Baltimore's Mercantile Trust and Deposit Co. building.

To date, the company has raised about $3.5 million from board members, individuals and foundations to support its move. The nonprofit is on track to begin renovations of its new home within six months and debut productions at the historic property at 200 East Redwood St. in 2014.
 
The money raised will pay for the purchase and renovation of the building and initial operating expenses. Lesley Malin, managing director, says the campaign is in its “quiet phase.” When it reaches 80 percent of the goal, the company will reach out to the public for contributions although she does not have a timeframe for doing that.
 
“We’ve already had a couple of open houses for the public to see the building. We’ve also had wine-and-cheese events” for donors, Malin says. “We like quiet events, like open houses. We will not have a gala to raise money.”

The new home is two blocks from the Inner Harbor and has been the home of several nightclubs. Baltimore architectural firm Cho Benn Holback + Associates Inc. will convert the 14,000-square-foot, circa 1885 building into a 250-seat theater.
 
The Helm Foundation, whose director Scott Helm is a Chesapeake Shakespeare trustee, bought the building for the company. Other foundation donors are The Abell Foundation, which recently gave $250,000, The France-Merrick Foundation, which gave $200,000 and The William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund, which gave $25,000 for operating expenses.

It could also get some state money. In the current Maryland General Assembly session, companion House and Senate bond bills would provide $500,000 in matching grant money to the company. The bills have yet to be approved.

Until now, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has presented shows in the summer at an outdoor venue in Howard County's Ellicott City. The acquisition of the Baltimore theater allows the company to expand its season and its audience. In its new home, Chesapeake will present four to five productions as well as an annual Charles Dickens-inspired Christmas show while continuing its summer shows in Ellicott City.
 
Malin says she is in talks with the Baltimore City Public School system to offer every student the opportunity to see live theater, including an annual spring production of “Romeo and Juliet” especially for students.
 
Malin is also talking with the Baltimore School for the Arts, a public high school within walking distance of the theater, about “some kind of partnership,” she says. “Different things are on the table.”
 
“We are not just opening a theater but saving a beloved architectural landmark and an anchor in a troubled venue,” she says of the company’s new home. “We will serve as a cultural center for the neighborhood. It’s another reason to move and live downtown.”
 
 
Source: Lesley Malin, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Baltimore's tourism bureau is expanding its free app for tourists and convention planners to new platforms and neighborhoods.

The 3-D app of the city, known as BaltimoreInSite, will be available free for Android devices and downloadable from Visit Baltimore's website by mid-2013. The app is currently available on the iPhone. Since it was launched last year, 60 people have downloaded the app. 

The app's map will cover about half the city by this summer and the rest by next year, says Brian Russell, integrated practice manager at Ayers Saint Gross Inc. The Baltimore architectural firm developed the app, which currently covers about one-fourth of the city. 

“We are applying video game technology to telling about the city in a unique way,” Russell says. 

Baltimore InSite now covers the Inner Harbor to Amtrak’s Penn Station, including Canton, Fort McHenry and Locust Point. Future coverage will extend to Station North Arts & Entertainment District and the Charles Street corridor along with major institutions and attractions like Johns Hopkins University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore Zoo and M&T Bank Stadium. The app links to hotels, restaurants, retail and attractions that are Visit Baltimore members.
 
Visit Baltimore  CEO Tom Noonan says the app has several uses. Convention and hotel sales teams use it to show potential convention customers the layout of the city and its attractions. It is a media planning guide to find restaurants, caterers and venues. Tourists use the app to find attractions and walking tours.
 
Noonan says the app is an ongoing project.  The web version will link to other websites, and new buildings and attractions like Horseshoe Casino will be added as they open.
 
The app cost about $40,000 to develop, paid by Visit Baltimore and Ayers Saint Gross, which also contributed pro bono work to the project. 
 
Sources: Brian Russell, Ayers Saint Gross; Tom Noonan, Visit Baltimore
Writer: Barbara Pash

Kithly LLC, a startup entertainment website, is kicking off a new business strategy to make money. 

The free website asks users to input their preferences for entertainment and then Kithly culls through its own list of activities and events that fit users' lifestyle. Kithly is now opening up its website to even promoters for a fee, giving them access to the people most likely to attend their events, says Co-founder Devin Partlow.
 
During the month of April, event promoters can sign up on its website to have information about their events sent to Kithly users for free. After the free offer ends, event promoters will hopefully stick around and continue to use the website, at a fee of $5 per event. 
 
“Everyone knows about the big shows and concerts in Baltimore. We are interested in the small and local events,” says Partlow of promoters and organizers who usually don’t have the budget to do much advertising.
 
“Instead of going onto a campus and hanging up posters or passing out flyers to whomever walks by, we are helping them reach their target market,” he says. “We used to recommend only things we could find for the site. Now, promoters and organizers will pay us to market to our users."
 
The change in business strategy is another evolution of Kithly since Partlow founded it in 2010. Originally called Hooopla, the idea was to let users of its website share information about events. It then broadened its reach to include information obtained from Facebook and Meetup groups. The company is one of four that graduated from Baltimore City's startup bootcamp Accelerate Baltimore.  
 
Partlow says he now has 6,000 recommendations on the website of places to go and things to do. The recommendations are constantly updated, and include events around the country. Most, though, are in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Kithly’s home base.
 
“We analyze our users, what kinds of events they like and run it through our algorithm. We recommend things they wouldn’t necessarily hear about,” he says of local comedy clubs and band appearances.
 
In the last two months, Partlow says that the number of website users and clicks to the website have grown by 70 percent each. He says there are now about 300 users.
 
Last year, Kithly moved into the Emerging Technology Center in Canton. Kithly received a $25,000 Accelerate Baltimore award from the Canton incubator. Partlow met his cofounder Stacy Weng and advisor Ben Lieblich through CoFoundersLab.com. 
Partlow is focusing Kithly on entertainment but may add other areas like sports events in the future. “We are starting with that niche and we’ll see how it works before expanding,” he says.
 
Source: Devin Partlow, Kithly LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Maryland General Assembly  is considering a bill that would boost the amount of tax credits a state program offers by 75 percent.

Under House Bill 108, sponsored by Baltimore County Democratic Del. Stephen Lafferty, the pot of money the state allocates under the Neighborhood and Community Assistance Program would go from $2 million to $3.5 million each fiscal year. The state Department of Housing and Community Development oversees the tax credits, which have been used for job training, food banks, housing, historical preservation and arts and culture.

Lafferty says he is optimistic passage of the bill this year, though a similar bill he sponsored last year didn't pass. At a recent hearing, six nonprofits testified or submitted letters in favor of the bill. They included Lighthouse Inc., a Baltimore County youth and family service, and the Maryland Food Bank. There was no opposition.

“It’s a competitive program," Lafferty says. "Generally, it’s oversubscribed and some groups are not able to get allocations or they get smaller allocations” for tax credits.
 
Under the program, individuals and businesses can claim a tax credit for 50 percent of contributions of more than $500. A donor can claim tax credits against personal income tax and corporate income tax. Unused tax credit can be carried forward for five tax years.

“For every $2 donated, the donor gets back $1 in tax credit,” he says. With the bill, “nonprofits can use the tax credits to get more contributions and to get larger contributions.”
 
Lafferty formerly worked in that state department and was aware of the program, which has been in existence since 1997. 
 
Maryland Food Bank spokeswoman Kate Sam says the nonprofit’s meal distribution has increased 187 percent over the past five years. She calls the tax credit program “critical” during that time. It is an incentive to attract new donors and to retain and even increase support from existing donors, she says. 
 
“The nonprofit community is in great need of resources. It is clear to me that the leverage of increased tax credits will help nonprofit groups,” says Lafferty.
 
Source: Stephen Lafferty, Maryland House of Delegates
Writer: Barbara Pash
 

 

Baltimore delegates to the Maryland General Assembly have introduced a bill to create an economic development area to promote the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor in west Baltimore as a place to live and do business.

House Bill 203 designates the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor as an arts, business and cultural district, with tax incentives for developers, artists and cultural groups. The district's boundaries are from Orchard Street on the south to Fulton Street on the north, Pennsylvania Avenue on the west to McCulloh Street on the east. It includes the Upton, Druid Heights and Penn North neighborhoods. 
 
The bill's broad goals are to restore cultural landmarks, preserve and reuse historical buildings, encourage business and job development, establish a tourist destination and enhance property values. It authorizes tax credits for qualifying individuals who own or rent residential property or conduct a business in the district, or who move there after it has been established. Qualifying individuals are eligible for property tax credit and exemption from admissions and amusement tax.
 
The bill does not specify funding sources for the redevelopment. “You want to establish the district first and the dollars will follow,” says Democratic Delegate Keiffer Mitchell, Jr., a co-sponsor of the bill who represents the district. “There is an array of possible funding that the city and state could use.”
  
“Some commercial development is going on already on Pennsylvania Avenue but I’d like to encourage other types of development,” says Democratic Delegate Melvin Stukes, lead sponsor of the bill who also represents the district.
 
Stukes says he wants to encourage the development of the cultural aspects of the corridor, in particular the construction of a new arts center that would house the Royal Theatre and the Arena Players. The Royal Theatre opened in 1922 and was demolished in 1971. It was a major destination for black entertainers, including Cab Calloway and Ray Charles. The Arena Players is currently housed at 801 McCulloh St.
 
“I see a lot of black history in Baltimore disappearing and I am determined to save as much as possible,” Stukes says.
 
Mitchell says the district would not be the first such district in Baltimore. That honor goes to the Station North Arts & Entertainment District. 
 
“It will help not just Pennsylvania Avenue but all the housing surrounding it, from McCulloh Street to Pennsylvania Avenue,” Mitchell says.
 
Says Stukes, “This not something that will happen overnight. We don’t have preliminary figures for the cost and how long it will take. But we want to begin a serious discussion on having it happen.”

The bill had its first reading before the House Economic Matters Committee last month. To date, a hearing has not been scheduled. If passed, the arts, business and cultural district designation would need approval from the Baltimore City Council. 

Nonetheless, both Stukes and Mitchell say they are optimistic about passage in the General Assembly. “Economic development for the City of Baltimore is viewed favorably,” Mitchell says. “And in terms of revitalizing the arts in the city and that this is an historical area, it bodes well for passage.”
 
Sources: Melvin Stukes and Keiffer Mitchell, Jr., Maryland House of Delegates
Writer: Barbara Pash

Mindgrub Games next week expects to release its third mobile game, “Escape! From Detention,” developed under its own brand and in conjunction with the Howard County Library System. Mindgrub Games, a division of Catonsville mobile application developer Mindgrub, plans to release more mobile games by the middle of this year. 
 
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services gave the public library a $100,000 grant to establish a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) laboratory for middle and high school students in the Savage Branch. Howard County then approached Mindgrub about the project.

“We created a basic game scenario and the kids were active participants in developing the game,” says Alex Hachey, lead Mindgrub Games designer. The game is downloadable for free from links on the Howard County Library System’s website.
 
The division is currently working on three new mobile games. One is a game for a client that may be announced later this month and two games under its own brand for a mid-2013 release.

Since Mindgrub Games was launched last summer, it has released two games. One, “Rescue Jump,” is its own brand. The second, “Scuba Adventures,” was done for a client, Discovery Kids, part of cable TV channel Discovery Network, and Zap Toys, a manufacturer in Hong Kong.
 
Mindgrub considered starting a games division two years ago, after an interactive festival showcased a mobile game that incorporated location technology, Hachey says.
 
“It was a spin on what Mindgrub had been doing. It got us thinking about games,” he says.
 
For “Scuba Adventures,” the division analyzed the market for competing games and worked with the client to develop a game to its specifications. The result is an educational game that sells for $1.99. Like all of Mindgrub Games’ products, it is available through Apple’s iTunes and the Android marketplace’s Google Play.
 
“Rescue Jump,” Mindgrub Games’ first product under its own brand, is a free download. It received over 1,300 downloads in its first two months.
 
Asked how the division makes money if the game is free, Hachey says, “Right now, it’s more of a learning objective. We are getting our feet wet in the game market. We are getting our name out. We can always add to or refine it [later] and then charge money.”
 
Since inception, Mindgrub Games has grown from three to seven full-time staffers. It is looking to hire Corona mobile applicaiton developers, illustrators and designers, depending on client contracts.
 
Source: Alex Hachey, Mindgrub Games
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 

An amateur photographer in Maryland has won a national film contest sponsored by director Ron Howard and Canon USA. University of Maryland, College Park senior Dylan Singleton submitted a photograph to Project Imaginat1On, a combination photo contest and short film series that will be made by celebrity guest directors and shown in a film festival next year. 

Singleton’s winning entry was culled from thousands of photographs submitted by the public. Musician James Murphy, one of the celebrity directors, picked Singleton’s moody, atmospheric photograph of a swimming pool at night for inspiration, much to Singleton’s surprise. Eva Longoria and Jamie Foxx are among the other celebrity directors involved in the project. 
 
“I sent in a couple of photos. One day, I got a call that I was a potential finalist. I’m still in a bit of a shock,” says Singleton, a Columbia resident who is majoring in sociology. “I’ve been swamped with papers and finals. It hasn’t set in.”
 
James Murphy is best known as the leader of the Grammy-nominated band LCD Soundsystem. He also cofounded the DFA label, which released the band’s catalogue, and he provided the original soundtrack for the 2010 film, “Greenberg.” Most recently, he was executive producer of “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” a feature-length film chronicling LCD Soundsytem’s farewell show at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2011.
 
For Singleton, a fan of online music blogs who has worked at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., being chosen by Murphy was a particular thrill. Has Murphy called to discuss the photo or his film?  “I’d love it but I’m sure he is a pretty busy guy,” says Singleton, who won a $500 credit to the Canon online store and two tickets to the film festival.
 
Murphy’s film will go into production next year. The location and date of the Canon Project Imaginat1On Film Festival has not yet been announced.
 
The photo contest was open to the public, who could submit photos in 10 categories with titles like “Backstory,” “Time,” “Mood” and “Obstacle.” Singleton entered “The Unknown” category.
 
The public voted on the winners – 10 winners in nine of the categories and a single winner in the 10^th category – for a total of 91 winners. The celebrity directors will make 10-minute films that are inspired by the photographs they chose.
  
 
Source: Dylan Singleton, winner “Project Imaginat1On”
Writer: Barbara Pash
 




 




 
 
 
 


 

Inequalities in housing, employment and education in the Baltimore metro area are the subject of a new radio series on WYPR FM 88.1. “Lines Between Us” kicked off Sept. 28 on the National Public Radio affiliate and will continue weekly for a year.
 
The series has a companion website that is the public's portal to the “landscape of inequality” in Baltimore neighborhoods, says Lawrence Lanahan, senior producer of “Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast." Segments of the series air every Friday between 9 to 10 a.m. on this program. 
 
“We want listeners to tell us their stories, either written, video or audio," to be featured on the website, Lanahan says. He notes that each segment will delve into a topic like how many people in a neighborhood don't have jobs and how long they've been unemployed, how many graduated from high school and how many own their homes or rent. 
 
Lanahan says the series is a first for “Maryland Morning” but not for WYPR, which ran a “Growing Up Baltimore” series and accompanying website through the news department. From the program’s perspective, he is hoping to reach elected officials, government officials and community members.
 
The University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute, the research arm of the Merrick School of Business, is providing the data and maps on which the series and website are based.
 
Seema Iyer, associate director and research assistant professor at the institute, says it has been collecting data and issuing annual reports on race and inequalities in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County for about a decade. This year Provost Joseph Wood initiated a series of activities for the university community that focused on the reports.
 
After WYPR approached the university, “it made sense to partner with them,” Iyer says. “Data is only as good as the number of people who use and understand it. We see it as a way to get our data to their audience, which is much larger than ours.”
 
Moreover, Iyer says the radio series gives the data a new, personal dimension. “The stories you can tell in an arena like WYPR give a different perspective to the data,” she says. “For us, it’s a great opportunity.”
 
 
Sources: Seema Iyer, University of Baltimore; Lawrence Lanahan, National Public Radio WYPR.FM
Writer: Barbara Pash