Press release from Cutting Edge
Cutting Edge, a leading provider of creative, broadcast, visual effects, film, digital and technical services to the media and entertainment industries, announces their involvement in the ‘Take a Stand Together’ website created for all Australian education authorities.
The ‘Take a Stand Together’ website http://www.takeastandtogether.gov.au was supported by all Australian education authorities, including State and Territory governments, the National Catholic Education Commission, the Independent School Councils of Australia and the Australian Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
Managed by the Queensland Government’s Department of Education and Training, and developed by Cutting Edge Digital, this website provides a platform for all Australian students to speak out against bullying.
A creative solution to an age old problem, the ‘Take a Stand Together’ website calls upon the joint skills of Ian Anderson, head animator within Cutting Edge’s VFX team, Andrew Morton, technical producer and Peter Koury, interactive producer to provide this clever platform against bullying. The website enables students to create their own avatar through which they can find their voice against bullying. “Using self made characters or avatars, was a brilliant way to bring life and empowerment to this site,” said Ian Anderson, head animator at Cutting Edge. “I created a library of characters that could be used interchangeably and would appeal to students of all ages. My aim is to give every student a greater opportunity to build upon their self esteem and to stand up to bullying.” The website was developed in accordance with the Queensland Government marketing and communications standards and Vision Australia’s colour contrast guidelines, to ensure the site behaved in a uniform way across different browsers. This made for a complicated development process where the website was created concurrently in flash and HTML. “Although we had to integrate a library of hundreds of character icons across both Flash and HTML, the end result was perfect. The website performance met our exact specifications and exceeded everyone’s expectations!” said Andrew Morton, Cutting Edge Digital’s technical producer. “With over 7,900 hits to the website on the first day, and more than 36,000 hits in the first month, I must say we are off to a good start in getting the message across.”