New York City-based QUIET MAN has completed "Caterpillar," a :20 CGI showopen for the Sci-Fi Channel, a cable service. The spot features a robotcaterpillar who changes into a metallic spider. Todd Mueller directed.
The fifth annual Anima Mundi festival has had its run July 9-18 in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil. At this festival the audience is the jury, and they havechosen:
Best Brazilian Film - DE JANELA PARA O CINEMA (RAINBOW'S END) by QuiáRodrigues.
Best Film of the Official Selection - GOGWANA by Deiniol Morris, UK.
Second Best Film of the Official Selection - AU BOUT DU MONDE (AT THE ENDSOF THE EARTH) by Konstantin Bronzit, France.
Third Best Film of the Official Selection - RECI, RECI, RECI (WORDS, WORDS,
Toronto-based NELVANA has hired Cathy Laughton as managing director of itsLondon-based operations. Laughton will be responsible for the overallmanagement of the UK office. Her responsibilities include the acquisitionof new properties for production/licensing development, sales to the UK,Germany, Scandinavia, and Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemborg),and securing co-production opportunities. Laughton joins Nelvana from theJim Henson Company where she served as director of international televisiondistribution.
Marvel Enterprises has hired Peter Cuneo as president and CEO. Cuneo wasCEO of Remington Products, president of the security hardware group ofBlack and Decker, and president of Clairol's personal care division. FormerCEO Eric Ellenborgen resigned to head a media investment concern.
Walt Disney International Europe and Buena Vista Internet Group (BVIG) havepromoted Andrew Barron to executive vice president of new media andbusiness development for Walt Disney International Europe; and Chafic Najiato senior vice president and managing director of Buena Vista InternetGroup Europe. Barron joined WDTV-I in 1995 as director of businessdevelopment. Since then he has been responsible for identifying andnegotiating several Disney Channel agreements, as well as equity
Warner Bros.' newly released shark thriller, DEEP BLUE SEA, with digital effects by ILM and Cinesite,finished third, grossing an estimated $18.6 million at the U.S. weekendboxoffice for a total of $24.7 million. DreamWorks SKG's THE HAUNTING, alsowith digital effects by ILM, finished fourth, grossing an estimated $15.1million for a total of $63.8 million; The Walt Disney Company's INSPECTORGADGET, with digital effects by DreamQuest, finished fifth, grossing anestimated $14 million for a total of $47.7 million; Lucasfilm's STAR WARS
Nickelodeon's PHRED ON YOUR HEAD is a show in which Phred, an originalanimated character who appears on the forehead of a different real kidevery day, and the kid whose forehead Phred appears on, introduce anirreverent collection of classic segments from such educational shows asSESAME STREET and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY, in addition to new material that iseducational and entertaining. Working from sketches provided by NewYork-based Data Motion Arts (DMA), Possible Worlds and MTV Animation
J.J. Sedelmaier Productions has completed a third season of SATURDAY NIGHTLIVE's TV FUNHOUSE. Segments included THE AMBIGUOUSLY GAY DUO in "Letters,"in which the duo answered questions about their crime fighting techniquesand costumes, and "Boys," in which the duo's interest in crime fighting istraced to their high school days.
THE IRON GIANT will be honored Saturday morning at 10:30 am at Mann'sChinese Theater in Hollywood when a supersized footprint (12' by 6') willbe presented by the filmmakers and stars in the forecourt of the historictheater. (Because of prior commitments, the Giant will be unable toattend.) Johnny Grant, the honorary mayor of Hollywood, will emcee theevent. Cast and crew will attend the film's premiere following thepresentation of the footprint. Among those in attendance will be the
Walt Disney's animated feature, TARZAN, will become the first-ever majorfeature release to be produced, mastered, and exhibited digitally when itopens today, Friday, July 30 at the following theaters: AMC's PleasureIsland multiplex at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, AMC's MediaCenter North 6 in Burbank, California, and the Edwards Irvine Spectrum inIrvine, California. According to Bob Lambert, senior vice president of newtechnology and new media for The Walt Disney Company, "TARZAN was the ideal
The 26th International Conference on Computer Graphics and InteractiveTechniques, is taking place in Los Angeles, August 8-13, 1999. AWN isparticipating in the SIGGRAPH '99 Electronic Schoolhouse, a new programproviding educators and students with an environment in which they canexplore and learn the many ways in which computer graphics are taught andused in the classroom. The Electronic Library, as both a meeting place anda resource space, offers attendees reference material and resources other
Clare Kitson, the person behind Channel 4 television's remarkable animationprogramming, is leaving the animation industry. Clare did an exceptionaljob, and deserves to leave her post with gratitude and appreciation fromthose she has worked with for the last twelve years. Therefore, AnimationWorld Network is publishing a tribute to Clare in the September '99 issueof Animation World Magazine, which will focus on television. Our tribute toClare will be presented in tandem with a historical article on animation at
The Ottawa International Animation Festival has announced the selectionsfor the official competition of the 1999 Ottawa International StudentAnimation Festival...
Check out a clip from MTV's newest animated series, "MTV Downtown", which premieres Tuesday,August 3, 1999 at 10:30 PM (ET/PT), and air regularly on Tuesday nights...
The July '99 issue of "Storyboard," the Newsletter for the French AnimationProducers' Union, is now available [in French], featuring the most recentEuropean industry news.
This week's AWN Animation Trivia Quiz features questions about early animators...
This week's comic is about one of Bill's favorite subjects to ridicule,cigarette addiction...
This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes the 11th International Children's Film Festival in India, and the 27th International Emmy Awards in New York.
AWN is pleased to announce the launch of a new monthly column by Pamela Thompson, a noted authority on jobs and recruiting within the animation and visual effects industries.
Level 13, a division of Film Roman, is currently acquiring short animated films...
70mm film cels on framed original production paintings, exclusively licensed by George Lucas!
Disney is releasing three original made-for-video titles. MADELINE: LOST IN PARIS will appear on August 3. Featuring the voice talents of Jason Alexander, Lauren Bacall, and Christopher Plummer, the story is based on characters that first appeared in the Madeline book series by Ludwig Bemelmans. In LOST IN PARIS, Madeline and her eleven school friends get immersed in an evil plot to steal Madeline's inheritance. BELLE'S TALES OF FRIENDSHIP and HERCULES: ZERO TO HERO will both be released on August 17.
On September 14, Kid Rhino will release the soundtrack album for the upcoming feature length Scooby-Doo video, SCOOBY-DOO! AND THE WITCH'S GHOST, which is scheduled for release on October 5. In SCOOBY-DOO! AND THE WITCH'S GHOST, Scooby and Mystery Inc. travel to a small New England town to learn why it's being spooked by witches' ghosts. Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Machine will appear in the flesh at the Rhino Retrofest, August 13 to 15, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, USA. Suggested retail price for the CD is US$13.98 and US$9.98 for the cassette.
SGI has begun volume shipments of the Silicon Graphics 1600SW digital flat panel monitor for Apple Macintosh computers. The monitor is bundled with the new Macintosh version of the Number Nine Revolution IV-FP graphics accelerator in the Apple Macintosh version of the Digital Flat Panel Solution Pack. The graphics card provides the digital display interface, and features 32MB of graphics memory. The monitor features a 19-inch CRT-equivalent, 17.3 inch 1600 x 1024 pixel screen. It offers three times the brightness and five times the contrast of a comparably-sized CRT, with no flicker.
The Welsh Animation Group, an association of Welsh animators created to develop an international animated film festival in Wales, has published the first issue of their newsletter, WAG NEWSLETTER. This new group centered in Cardiff has emerged for a number of reasons. Siriols Robin Lyons first discussed, The need for a lobbying pressure group and, just as importantly a forum for animators, as stated in the publications editorial written by Dave Berry.
