AWN Headline News

* Monday, January 10, 2000 - Saturday 29, 2000. New York, New York, USA.

After the crimson dust clears from the apocolyptic Armegedeon of Y2K, goenjoy some animation at the School of Visual Arts' "Animation Dreams:Millenium Nightmares" exhibit. Films presented at the screening centeraround the theme of the students' most horrific nightmares. The exhibitionwill also feature 3D character models, storyboards, animation cels,background drawings, murals, video tests of films, and a reel of

TOY STORY 2 has repeated its performance in the top spot at the U.S. boxoffice. The film took in approximately US$28.3 million over the weekend tobring its two week total to $117.3 million. The remaining three films inthe top four also stayed the same from Thanksgiving with: THE WORLD IS NOTENOUGH, with primary visual effects by Digital Film, Cinesite London, andMagic Camera, coming in second with a gross of $10.6 million and a cume of$90.4 million; END OF DAYS, with primary visual-effects by Rhythm & Hues,

The war between TOY STORY and POKEMON over kids' piggy bank change hasmoved to a new battle field -- the local burger joint! McDonald's Corp.,the U.S.-based, world-wide burger chain, has released TOY STORY 2 toys inconnection with the recently released film. The McDonald's promotion,featuring a collection of 20 different characters from the TOY STORY 2movie, will be distributed with each Happy Meal purchase. The chain willalso offer six TOY STORY 2-themed candy dispensers for $1.99 each with the

TROLLBACK & CO., a newly formed visual effects and design studio, finisheda new spot for ROWECOM, a start-up internet service company. The commercialfeatures a fast-paced mix of books, maps and other layered images in conjunction withlive action footage by director Elena Colombo. The spot was produced for thecreative team at Boston-based McKay Communications. The spot started airing October18 on CNBC North America and Europe (including the United Kingdom).

INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC just finished up the new Will Smith video WILL2K forColumbia Records and Sony Pictures. Robert Caruso directed the vid that sendsmega-star Will Smith on a Millenium eve time traveling spree. The futuristiceffects were created with ILM's newest motion capture software.

Read Heather Kenyon's interview with ILM's Seth Rosenthal in AnimationWorld Magazine.

BLUE SKY STUDIOS adds DR. MICHAEL REED as a new member to its research anddevelopment team. He comes to Blue Sky after receiving his Ph.D. inComputer Science from Columbia University and positions at the laboratoriesof IBM, Philips, and Bell Atlantic Corporations. Reed will continue hiswork with geometric surface construction techniques to create new solutionsin rendering and geometry for Blue Sky.

MARVEL ENTERPRISES INC. announced two new Directors have been appointed to the Board. PETER CUNEO, President and CEO, Marvel Enterprises, Inc., andproducer SID GANIS, former Vice Chairman of Columbia Pictures and Presidentof Worldwide Marketing for Columbia/TriStar Motion Pictures Companies, wereeach appointed to the Board of Directors.

FRANK T. CARUSO has been promoted to VP, Creative, at KING FEATURESSYNDICATE, a world leader in distributing comics to newpapers and merchandising licensing. The former Creative Director, Licensing will oversee new King Features licensing properties and all creative aspects of the company's Internet, animation and promotional activities. He will continue to supervise the creative aspects of BETTY BOOP, POPEYE, and other classic King Feature comic properties.

Director/animator Mike Dietz, founder of Orange County, CA-based MikeDietz Studios, has signed on to direct an episode of THE PJ'S, thestop-motion animated show starring movie-star Eddie Murphy, for Portland,OR-based Will Vinton Studios. Mike Dietz was one of the founding partnersof The Neverhood, the stop motion animation studio that produced severalprojects for Steven Spielberg's interactive division of DreamWorks SKG.Since leaving The Neverhood to start his own animation studio, Mike has

This weekend, Film Roman, Inc., producers of THE SIMPSONS and KING OF THEHILL, launched Level 13.net, an innovative multi-channel animation networkto be delivered via the Internet. Level 13 is the industry's firstregularly scheduled, animated television-like network made directly for theWeb. William Shpall, Chief Operating Officer of Film Roman, and architectof the company's Internet strategy, said, "While many of today'sentertainment and Internet leaders are still testing enhanced television