AWN Headline News

Sideshow Motion Design has created 81 20-second promotional spots for NBC and Coca Cola to highlight the Summer Olympic Games. The ads utilize still photos of over 40 athletes in a moving fashion evocative of gold photo albums. Jie Shen designed and directed the commercials. "Our client, NBC, saw the importance of collaborating with Coke and wanted to do something with still photography and bring it life with an emotional wallop," said Sideshow president Scott Mantel. "This campaign shows Jies talents off beautifully.

With the live-action comedy, BRING IT ON still claiming the #1 spot, New Lines THE CELL jumped up a spot to second in the U.S. box office charts over the Labor Day holiday. The serial killer mind trek, with primary visual effects by Toybox, grossed another US$9.1 million, raising its cume to $46.4 million. Also moving up a slot to third, SPACE COWBOYS showed that old guys have box office pull with a gross of $8.3 million. The aged astronauts, with primary visual effects by ILM, have wrangled up a total of $74.2 million thus far.

Locomotion, a primetime cable animation network for young-adults, has now launched Locomotion.com, broadcasting animation to fans in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The site will initially produce three of its own series entitled EL SANTOS, TEEVY and RUDO BY NIGHT. SANTOS is based on the cult comic strip from Mexican artists Jis and Trino. TEEVY from British artist Robert Ramsden follows the illogical world of Teevy. From Australians Eddie Mort and Lili Chin, RUDO follows the crazy adventures of a wrestling night school. In the future Mort and Chin will work on three more series -- DR.

If Spielberg cant succeed on the Web who can? This is the question that has been buzzing around the long delayed launch of DreamWorks and Imagine Entertainments Webcaster Pop.com. On Wednesday, August 31, 2000, Netcaster iFilm.com confirmed that it is in final negotiations to merge with Pop. No details of the merger have been announced but Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is overseeing the deal. Allen and his Vulcan Ventures injected US$50 million into Pop in its beginnings. The billionaire is also one of the chief investors in iFilm.

Soho, U.K.-based The Hive, a 3D animation company, has completed a series of idents to promote the launch of Flextech Interactives brand-new digital TV cable channel, SceneOne. Launched on July 5, 2000, SceneOne is the first-ever television channel to be developed from an Internet site, and focuses on music, film and entertainment. The Hive created three idents "The Club Scene," "The Film Scene" and "The Gig Scene" - to reflect the hip style of SceneOnes three main weekly review programs.

The 8th International Hiroshima Animation Festival has awarded its top three prizes to National Film Board of Canada films. The Grand Prize was awarded to Annecy winner and Oscar nominee WHEN THE DAY BREAKS from Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. In addition, Torril Cove's MY GRANDMOTHER IRONED THE KING'S SHIRTS took home the special jury prize and Eugene Federinko and Rose Newlove's VILLAGE OF IDIOTS was awarded the Renzo Kinoshita Prize. The festival opened on Thursday, August 24 and concluded Monday, August 28, 2000.

* Wednesday, September 27, 2000. Hollywood, California, U.S.A.

AWN's stock ticker features the most prominent publicly traded companies in the world of animation. AWN, Inc. makes available certain financial information from third party information providers. AWN does not give advice in any such fields, and has not reviewed, and in no way endorses the validity of such data. This information is provided solely as a means to keep our readers informed of the market performance and trends of certain companies. AWN strongly suggests that one seek advice from a competent professional regarding any investment or financial issues.