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Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios10 posts

Amazon Studios is the media production arm of Amazon. Launched in 2010, the production company markets and distributes children, drama, and comedy original programing. The studio accepts submissions of finished screenplays and concept videos and helps promote emerging directors and writers. The studio bases its choice of programming on feedback from Amazon Prime viewers. The studio has produced the comedy series Alpha House and Betas, as well as greenlit full seasons of the children’s series Tumbleleaf and Annedroids.

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27 Aug, 2014

Transparent premier

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Amazon announces it will broadcast all ten episodes of Soloway’s dark comedy Transparent September 26th on Prime Instant Video. Solloway:

I am beyond excited to share Transparent with the world through Amazon. They’ve been so supportive through this incredible process. Artistically, it’s been a dream come true. I absolutely got to make the show I wanted to make.

The show stars Jeffrey Tambor, Judith Light, Gaby Hoffmann, Amy Landecker, and Jay Duplass. The show follows the lives of a Los Angeles family as they deal with the secrets they have kept from each other. Viewers can watch the pilot for free on Amazon Instant Video.

Third Pilot Season

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Amazon debuts its third pilot season, three comedy series and two hour-long thrillers. Viewers can watch the pilots for free on Amazon Instant Video. Based on viewer comments and feedback, Amazon will greenlight selected shows to be made into an Amazon Original Series. The comedies are The Cosmopolitans, Really, and Red Oaks, and the thriller pilots are Hand of God and Hysteria. Roy Price:

We’re delighted to bring Amazon customers the work of these passionate and talented creators and are excited to get customer feedback. It’s an exciting time at Prime Instant Video, with new, original shows coming to the service every month for the rest of the year.

25 Jul, 2014

Annedroids

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Amazon launches  Annedroids — its third original programming for kids series. The show revolves around a kid scientist Anne and her human and non-human friends, including a genderless robot negotiating “boy” and “girl” roles. Created by J.J. Johnson and Sinking Ship Entertainment, the series is produced by Amazon Studios, the company’s in-house production company:

[the show] organically showcases the STEAM (Science & Technology interpreted through Engineering & the Arts) curriculum by way of a ‘secret garden’ of science, a junkyard environment where it’s not unusual to see a 16-foot claw-like android helping an 11-year-old kid scientist harness lightning to power up her latest invention – and that’s just episode 1!

27 Jun, 2014

Creative Galaxy

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Amazon adds another series to its original children’s programming produced by Amazon Studios. Creative Galaxy, from Angela Santomero and Out of the Blue, relies on the premise that art is part of our everyday lives. Available to stream on Amazon Instant Video, the first six episodes are free for Amazon Prime subscribers. The show tells the story of space travellers Art and Epiphany who journey the galaxy making art to fix the problems they face. At the end of each show, a live-action featurette allows parents and children to learn how to make the crafts featured in each episode.

Creative Galaxy - Series Preview | Prime Video Kids

23 May, 2014

Tumble Leaf

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Amazon releases Tumble Leaf, its first original programming geared for kids. The first episode is free on Amazon Instant Video and the rest of the series are available exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers. Targeted to preschoolers and their parents, the stop-motion animated show features a blue Fox named Fig, his sidekick Stick, and cohort Maple. They live on a ship dry docked adjacent to a beach and a green forest. Created by Drew Hodges and produced by Bix Pix Entertainment, the show is designed to promote “creative thinking and education through a world of adventure and play.”

Tumble Leaf - Official Teaser | Prime Video Kids

6 Feb, 2014

Second Pilot Season

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Amazon debuts its second wave of pilot episodes available for streaming on Amazon Instant Video. The lineup includes a mix of comedy and drama pilots: Bosch, The After, Mozart in the Jungle, The Rebels, and Transparent. Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios:

With our previous set of pilots, customers submitted thousands of reviews within the first few days and more than 80 percent of those reviews were 4 and 5 stars. We collaborated with some of the very best creators in Hollywood — and even some new comers that submitted their show through our open door process — to bring customers a wide array of top-quality shows. This season we have something for everyone with a mix of comedy, drama and kids programming — we can’t wait to hear what customers think.

Viewers will rate their favorite pilots, and selected shows will be greenlit for a full-season distributed by Amazon Studios.

22 Nov, 2013

Betas

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Amazon Studios releases Betas, its second original comedy series. The show, along with Alpha House, won out among six other competing comedy pilots vetted by Amazon customers. Betas is about a group of awkward techies who want to create a dating app so they form a start-up in San Francisco. The show stars Ed Begley Jr., Joe Dinicol, Jon Daly, Maya Erskine, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni, and was created by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard. Slated to include eleven episodes in its first season, the first three episodes are available for free on Amazon Instant Video, but subsequent episodes will be released every week exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers.

15 Nov, 2013

Alpha House

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Amazon Studios debuts the first season of Alpha House its first original series. The show, a comedy written by Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau, is loosely based on a group of senators who shared a townhouse in Washington. Trudeau:

The first season is about the fight for survival among incumbent Republican senators first elected in the pre-Tea Party era. Even though they’re all solidly conservative, three of the four senators living in Alpha House are facing strong primary challenges from the right. The struggle to hold onto their core values drives both the comedy and the drama in our show.

The show stars John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos. The first three episodes are free on Amazon Instant Video, but following its initial release each week new episodes will be added exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers.

19 Apr, 2013

First original pilots

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Amazon, through its Amazon Studios moniker, releases fourteen original pilots available for streaming on Amazon Instant Video. The pilots include a range of programming, from Betas, about a group of awkward techies trying to make it big in Silicon Valley, to Alpha House, about four Republican U.S. Senators who share a townhouse in Washington. It is the first time the online retailer has branched out into original programming, making it a competitor with Netflix (which also produces original content), HBO, and Showtime. Eight The pilots include a range of programming, from Betas, about a group of awkward techies trying to make it big in Silicon Valley, to Alpha House, about four Republican U.S. Senators who share a townhouse in Washington.of the shows are comedies, and six are geared for children. Anyone in the U.K., U.S., and Germany can watch the pilots for free, and based on user surveys Amazon will decide which shows are greenlit for a full series to be made available exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers. Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios:

For the past year the Amazon Studios team has collaborated with some of the best actors and writers in Hollywood to produce top-quality shows. Now we’ve handed the remote to our customers to hear what they think. 

 

16 Nov, 2010

Amazon Studios

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In a business venture to promote talent, and to develop new content, Amazon launches Amazon Studios. It’s an initiative from the online retailer to entice screenwriters and filmmakers to submit scripts for possible production under a “first-look deal” with Warner Bros. The company hopes to promote potential feature-length movies and to award $2.7 million to the top submissions. If an Amazon Studios feature is released, the creator receives a rights payment of $200,000, and if the movie makes more than $60 million U.S. dollars at the box office, the original creators will receive a bonus of $400,000. Roy Price, Director of Digital Product Development:

Full-length test movies will show stories up on their feet and attract helpful feedback at an early stage. We hope that Amazon Studios will help filmmakers experiment and collaborate and we look forward to developing hit movies.