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FableVision's Animated
"Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" Debuts at Symphony Hall for 2018 Holiday Pops Program

FableVision Studios is delighted to announce our collaboration with the Boston Pops for the 2018 Holiday Pops season. Led by FableVision’s Vice President of Creative Tone Thyne and Animation Director Rick Ritter, the studio provided the concept, art and design, and animation for Leon Jessel’s “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” Inspired by Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart’s direction and desire to evoke the warmth, nostalgia, and magic of the holiday season, FableVision created an original story to accompany the musical composition.

The animation will be projected on a 40-foot screen in Symphony Hall and will be accompanied by the orchestra. Thousands of families attend the beloved Holiday Pops every year to hear live renditions of their favorite holiday melodies and new seasonal songs.

FableVision’s festive interpretation of “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” embodies the spirit of the season and will be featured as part of the musical program at every concert. The animation follows a young wooden soldier who tries to keep up with his battalion despite a mischievous cardinal’s best efforts.

March over to Symphony Hall to celebrate the holiday spirit with FableVision Studios and the Boston Pops! Purchase tickets to see Holiday Pops performances here.

GPB Education, the Georgia Council on Economic Education, and FableVision Studios Launch Lights, Camera, Budget!

GPB Education is headed to the movies with its latest online game for middle and high school students. Created in partnership with the Georgia Council on Economic Education (GCEE) and the award-winning media developers at FableVision Studios, Lights, Camera, Budget! capitalizes on the excitement of the film industry to teach personal finance concepts. The game was designed to work across web and mobile platforms and is available online and via mobile devices here.

Taking on the role of a movie producer, students start with $100 million in funds and move through three phases of the game: pre-production, production and post-production. To ensure that the movie is completed, students must correctly answer questions about financial literacy topics in order to earn enough money to hire the top actors and directors and get the best locations and marketing firms.

“Lights, Camera, Budget! uses humor and riffs on well-known shows and movies made in Georgia to portray its film industry as a creative and multi-faceted career opportunity for students,” said Gary Goldberger, President and Co-Founder of FableVision Studios. “FableVision's design approach integrates personal interest and relevance with important financial literacy content for a fun, engaging experience that's aligned with GPB Education's excellent educational offerings.”

Students must analyze the risks and rewards of each choice and its impact on the budget, with the goal of creating a blockbuster movie that doesn’t bust the bank. Throughout the game, players draw on and enhance their knowledge of key financial literacy concepts, including debt, interest, loans and credit, budgeting, and goal setting.

“Lights, Camera, Budget! stands out in a crowded field of financial literacy materials because it intensely focuses on the decision-making process,” said Dr. Chris Cannon, Associate Director and Chief Program Officer, Georgia Council on Economic Education. “Good decision-making is at the core of healthy personal finance. The creative character names, unique imagery and unexpected events encourage multiple plays that should reinforce the content and decision-making skills in a positive way.”

Lights, Camera, Budget! is aligned to the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE) and was vetted by Georgia educators and students who provided feedback during the development process to guide production. The project was made possible through funding from SunTrust Foundation. Read the full announcement on GPB’s site here.

AG Healey, GE Foundation Unveil New Online App Developed by FableVision Studios, Announce $450,000 To Middle Schools For Substance Use Prevention Education

Part of $2 Million Public-Private Partnership to Tackle Unmet Need for and Expand Access to Youth Prevention Education

Attorney General Maura Healey and the GE Foundation today unveiled a first-of-its-kind web-based education app and announced nearly $450,000 in grants to public middle schools as part of Project Here, a $2 million public-private collaboration to make substance use prevention education available to all public middle schools in Massachusetts. Project Here was designed to tackle a significant unmet need in the state’s battle against the ongoing opioid crisis.

“We know that to end the opioid epidemic, we need to stop substance use before it starts,” said AG Healey. “Project Here was designed to address an unmet need for substance use prevention education in our schools. This new app and grant funding will help empower students to make the right decisions, promote health and wellness, and lead change in their schools and communities. We encourage every school to sign up for Project Here to access these free resources for students.”

Project Here promotes social emotional learning and empowers students to make healthy decisions through an innovative combination of curricula, digital content, and support for educators and students. The team behind the initiative (the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, GE Foundation, Health Resources in Action, The Herren Project) partnered with FableVision Studios to create Project Here Games, an innovative and engaging digital experience to teach students about healthy choices, peer pressure, substance use and coping with stress.

Taking cues from popular mainstream games already played by the target audience, the research-based Project Here Games app is a web-based interactive structured as a fast-moving experience that offers bite-sized experiences. Players begin by playing a variety of mini-games and quizzes to earn skills in four content areas—myth-busting, coping, decision-making, and communication. Players can then apply these skills to solve scenarios dealing with critical social and emotional life skills such as mindfulness, peer pressure, stress, and effective communication. The scenario section gives players an opportunity to try out these solutions in a safe, online space and is structured as a fast-moving, playful consumer entertainment experience with an underlying, embedded curriculum.

FableVision concepted and storyboarded the interactive with a variety of simulated environments to engage and assess students’ understanding about the risks of substance use and reinforce their healthy decision-making skills. Project Here Games is available for free on computers, tablets, and smartphones and has the flexibility to be used by teachers as an in-classroom activity or by students outside of school.

Project Here Games is available to play at www.projectheregames.org. People can learn more information and schools can register for Project Here, which provides access to the Online Toolkit and support for Project Here Games, at www.here.world. You can watch the press conference announcement here and read the full press release here.

Join Peter H. Reynolds for a
Rose's Garden StoryWalk on The Greenway

The Rose Kennedy Greenway will host a StoryWalk of New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds' children's book, Rose's Garden, in August. Inspired by Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and the work she did to make Boston a beautiful place, the book features a gorgeous garden much like The Greenway that winds through Boston's downtown.

Join The Greenway, and partner organizations - The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, the Boston Children's Museum, and The Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning, and Creativity - over the summer months for a series of paper flower making activities. The culminatingulatin event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 25, with a photoshoot at 1 p.m. on the Greenway (Parcel 14). Children will be encouraged to make paper flowers and write how they will make a difference on the petals - and bring them for the big, group photo with author Peter H. Reynolds.

For more details and to make flowers, click here.
What: Rose's Garden StoryWalk & Photoshoot
When: Saturday, August 25, 2018, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: Greenway Carousel at the Tiffany & Co Foundation Grove

FableVision, MPT, Maryland Humanities,
and CIRCLE Awarded Prestigious
Library of Congress Grant

FableVision Studios, in collaboration with Maryland Public Television (MPT), Maryland Humanities, and The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life, is proud to announce their award of a Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Grant from theLibrary of Congress.

This $450,000, two-year grant will fund the development of Civics: An American Musical,an online and mobile civics game designed to effectively and creatively engage middle school students using primary sources from the Library of Congress. Inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s renowned musical Hamilton, Civics: An American Musical will consist of a web-based role playing game, hands-on classroom projects, and professional development materials for teachers.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with leading institutions like MPT, CIRCLE from Tufts University, Maryland Humanities, and the Library of Congress to showcase some of our nation’s most important primary sources,” says FableVision President and Co-Founder Gary Goldberger, who made the announcement. “Our strategy is to engage kids using a familiar concept, a cultural musical phenomenon, that captures their imaginations – and create a scaffolded onramp to make history relevant to their everyday lives.”

The Teaching with Primary Sources program at the Library of Congress is a powerful way to help students ask engaged, probing questions, develop critical-thinking skills, construct knowledge, and inspire original research. The educational outreach program for teachers provides professional-development opportunities that focus on enhancing their ability to embed digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress into inquiry-based instruction to build student literacy, critical thinking skills, and content knowledge.

You can read the official Library of Congress announcement here. For more information about the TPS Grant and to learn more about Civics: An American Musical, read our full release. Have more questions? Please contact Sarah Ditkoff, Communications Director, at sarah@fablevision.com.