Category: Business

In a move to consolidate, DreamWorks Television Animation has closed down, and the direct-to-video unit has merged with the feature division. A DreamWorks spokeswoman stated, "We are currently reorganizing our animation divisions so we are all operating under one umbrella. While we have decided not to continue pursuing television animation opportunities at this time, we are continuing to develop and produce animation for both feature films and direct-to-video." The TV division, spearheaded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, opened shop in 1996 headed by Gary Krisel and David Simon.

Visual effects and animation studio Rhythm & Hues has purchased the VIFX portion of Marina del Rey based-effects house Blue Sky/VIFX from 20 Century Fox for approximately $5 million. Under the Rhythm & Hues banner, the combined companies will be the largest privately owned visual f/x house in Los Angeles. The core management team at VIFX will remain intact although layoffs are expected for some of VIFX's 100+ employees because of an overlap of job functions once the merger is completed.

London-based Pearson Television has purchased EVA Entertainment for £2 million ($3.3 million). EVA, a five year-old pan-European venture, produces and distributes children's animation with a library of around 200 half-hours including SPOT THE DOG and BILLY THE CAT. The company was also one of four co-producers on BBC2's animated series, REX THE RUNT. Pearson's recently appointed director of animation John Bullivant will oversee EVA. However, the studio will continue to be run by EVA's managing director Mikael Shields, who'll function as chief operating officer.

After the success of "The Rugrats Movie" and plenty of hit television shows, Klasky Csupo is relocating to a bigger building at 6353-57 Sunset Boulevard, across from the Hollywood Cinerama Dome. The 6-floor, 95,000 square ft., state-of-the-art glass and steel structure was originally designed as an auto showroom for Mercedes-Benz, but will now hold up to 500 Klasky Csupo employees. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan says, "This is great news for the heart of Hollywood.

Funny Farm Studios is a new 2D animation studio starting up in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility is headed by Donna Ervin, former manager and producer for DESIGNefx cel animation, and two animation directors, Jim Peebles and Jeff Fastner. "We have enormous talent, experience and speed to offer," states Ervin. The studio will target the national and regional commercial, interstitial programming and web development markets.

The Attik, a worldwide design agency, has opened offices in Sydney, Australia to create a stronger global presence. In the past two years, the company has also launched U.S. offices in New York and San Francisco. The new office in Sydney will be headed up by Simon Needham who will relocate to Australia with a number of other colleagues from the London, U.K. home office. This is a natural progression for us. We are a global design company.

As a follow-up to our 11/17/98 Animation Flash story, Canadian-based CINAR Films Inc. has changed their name to CINAR Corporation (Corporation CINAR in French) after a Special Meeting of Shareholders approved the change. The new name better reflects the diversification of the companys business activities which have expanded beyond the film industry.

Balmur Entertainment, a music management and publishing company owned by singer-performer Anne Murray, has acquired Evening Sky Productions and The Animation House in an effort to produce original animated series, live-action family entertainment and music-driven television specials for global distribution. Evening Sky (headed by David and Mary Corbett) and Animation House (headed by Bob Fortier) will merge to become a wholly-owned division of Balmur Entertainment and will operate as Evening Sky Productions.

The Harvey Entertainment Company (Nasdaq: HRVY) reported a net loss of $2,006,000, or $0.48 per share, for the third quarter of 1998 as compared to a net gain of $2,551,000, or $0.62 a share, for the same third quarter period in 1997. For the nine month period ending September 30,1998, Harvey has totaled a net loss of $4,788,000, or $1.19 per share, as compared to a net income of $2,551,000, or $0.64 per share, in the comparable year-ago period. Net operating revenues were also considerably less coming in at a negative $1,121,000 compared to revenues of $7,126,000 in the year-ago period.

Kids programming syndicator Bohbot Kids Network (BKN), the fourth US broadcast kids network scheduled to launch August 29, 1999, has acquired Los Angeles-based Epoch Ink Animation (founded by Joe Pearson) to establish BKN Studios. Epoch was founded in 1995 and has since completed original and for-hire animated projects for television, home video, interactive and theatrical distribution.

Pixar, the company behind "Toy Story," posted a third quarter net profit of $2.5 million, or $0.02 per share, down from a third quarter profit of $5.3 million last year. The positive profits however did surprise financial analysts who had forecasted a third quarter loss of $0.02 for the third quarter. The upcoming release of "A Bug's Life" is expected to help further rejuvenate Pixar's revenues.