Stardotstar up for four ‘Oscars’

A city centre digital media company is battling it out with the big boys after being nominated for four of the biggest British industry awards of their kind.
Newton Street’s Stardotstar has been nominated for four BIMA awards is up against the BBC, MSN, Honda and Nike.
Run by the British Interactive Media Association, the hotly contested awards attract submissions from some of Britain’s biggest digital media, TV and film companies.
Stardotstar is in the running for the awards thanks to two highly innovative landscape interpretation projects. The first, Quantum Sheep and the Wonderful ‘Wolds, is an action-packed interactive game that features a time travelling sheep. Young visitors to the Cotswolds can play the game in situ, thanks to a series of bespoke Cotswold stone-clad kiosks. As they play, they can learn more about the wildlife and landscape that surround them, and how human intervention has changed both over the past 6,000 years.
The second project is hearmanchester.com, an audio tour of Manchester fronted by punk singer and music pundit, John Robb which I’ve previously featured on the M.E.N’s community pages.
Commissioned by Manchester City Council, the audio tours can be accessed online via a PC or MP3 player, or listened to on site via an iPhone or 3G mobile. This enables visitors to create their own guided tour around the Rochdale Canal area of the city centre, and discover more about Manchester’s fascinating past.

Business Development Manager, Gareth Langley explained the company’s success to me: “Because we invent and create everything from corporate web applications and educational games to cross-platform projects, we’re able to come up with products that exactly fit the requirements of each job.”
Stardotstar has a dedicated team of just five staff but is no stranger to receiving national praise. In 2007, it swiped three BIMA awards, beating the likes of Channel 4, the BBC and MTV, while in previous years the company has been part of a BAFTA award-winning team at Channel 4. The company’s client list includes the BBC, Channel 4, 3i, GMPTE, Astra Zeneca and the Department of Transport.
The awards will be announced on 27 November at a ceremony at the Bloomsbury Club, London.
Good luck all!