Today schools are searching for digital resources and texts that are available at an affordable price. Finding materials that are accessible, meaningful and enjoyable for today's youth is a great problem for schools.

First Folio Productions is transitioning secondary schools away from the cost burden of paper textbooks by creating and providing them with affordable digital teaching tools that are commensurate with current technology and representative of the way today's youth receives and processes information.

Nick Brous, Managing Director

During his 15 year career in advertising, Nick was known by his colleagues as “the guy who can bring Shakespeare into any conversation.”

"Nick Brous is one of the most creative and thoughtful people I have ever met. I've known him since he was a young boy, who always carried with him a special spirit-a spirit of wonder. His love of literature, especially Shakespeare's plays, was evident, as was his enthusiasm for learning. It's no surprise to me that he's made his mark in the film business and that, after many successes in the field, he is eager to turn his attention to helping students step into the dynamic world of Shakespeare." - Merle Marsh, Director of Special Projects, Worcester Preparatory School (one of First Folio's clients)

Prior to First Folio, Nick was the Vice President and Group Account Director for Publicis, where he spent seven years producing commercials, educational videos and digital media campaigns for companies like Pfizer, Merck and Astra Zeneca.

Richard Claflin, Executive Creative Director

He is currently in preproduction on the feature film "Dead Reckoning" to be produced by Lucy Donnelly (Friends With Kids, Grey Gardens). He also has a film in development with Temple Hill Entertainment (The Twilight Saga, "Revenge"). In 2012, Richard wrote “Gold Diggers,” a drama pilot for ABC. He also spent ten years as Vice-President of Primetime Series Development for NBC and ABC.

Michael Zussman, Legal Counsel

Jim Sae, Tax Accountant

For many years, Shakespeare has been an integral part of English literature examinations and is part of the education experience of many pupils in secondary school. It is understandable, at a time when social, economic and political patterns are changing so swiftly and radically, that a figure such as Shakespeare offers a secure link to the past as well as a rich educational experience.  However, teaching Shakespeare to the new generation is not just a walk in the park and it does present problems in the classroom.

Not least of these is the complexity of Shakespeare's language.  Much that he wrote is in verse, and at times the meaning is obscured by archaic words and expressions, and differences in usage of grammar and punctuation. Many puns and topical references meant much more to the Elizabethan audience thatn to the modern reader. The words were meant to be hear aloud.  They were also meant to be spoken by professional actors. And the list goes on.

First Folio brings Shakespeare to the 21st century screen and makes his work more accessible, meaningful and enjoyable for today's youth.

Many tips and articles have been written and published online on how to effectively teach Shakespeare in the classroom but nothing comes close to what First Folio is offering.

Video Content. There are many digital textbooks of Shakespeare's plays available, but most are simply PDFs of the printed book, which is exactly what teachers do not want. Some include audio content. Ours will perhaps be the only one to also include video content.

Quality product. Most English literature digital textbooks are no more than PDFs of the text. Ours is different because it is truly interactive, featuring annotated pop-ups, easy click throughs and audio and video content.  First Folio's new feature film “Hamlet,” our first Shakespeare play project, that will be included in each textbook is the crown jewel. Teachers often use Mel Gibson’s movie version to teach this play, must be obtained separately and watched in class (unless the teachers wants to get stacks of DVDs to pass out as homework.) With “Hamlet Matters,”  this new film version of "Hamlet" is part of the web application, so each student can watch it at home on their ipad or laptop.

Transparent pricing structure that models digital rather than print. We sell
our ebooks using not the bookselling model, but rather the software selling
model. Instead of charging for “books,” we charge for “seats” of bundles of licenses to access the web application. Moreover, the publishers that do offer schools any kind of economy of scale discount require teachers to contact them directly and in essence “work out the deal.” Instead, we will provide transparent pricing online so teachers can order for their entire class with the ease of online ordering. Our pricing will be tier-structured, based on the number of seats needed, and this will be apparent on our web site.

As we become more successful with our first textbook to launch, "Hamlet Matters," more projects, all of which share the same idea as "Hamlet Matters," will be in our pipeline.  We will be coming up with textbook titles such as:

• Romeo and Juliet Matters
• Othello Matters
• Macbeth Matters

This collection, when complete, will cover the four plays most often taught in US secondary schools.

Images courtesy of Wikipedia

We have made a lot headway into bringing our product to the schools and aid both teachers and students to teach and learn Shakespeare.

We will have a demo available for "Hamlet Matters" by May 1st. Even without the demo, we have managed to get five schools interested.

With the demo ready, we can promote the program to raise awareness and begin to approach potential distributors.

We are set to launch the product by late August 2013.

We have received a letter of support and recommendation from Dr. Merle Marsh of Worcester Preparatory School which validates and gives credibility to the value of the product.

We are also developing the web app "Shakespeare Matters," which uses audio and video content to teach how and why Shakespeare as a dramatist is so well regarded, and also how it was not only his genius but also the specific generation into which he was born that enabled him to create the body of work that he did.