AWN Headline News

Newtek has once again reinforced itscommitment to the Macintosh platform by announcing that Lightwave 3D 5.6,and the recently announced Lightwave 6 is compatible with Apple's new MACOS 9. The new OS 9 platform brings features such as QUICKTIME 4.0 support,floating windows, and faster real-time manipulation to MAC-based Lightwaveusers for the first time. Apple will be releasing OS 9 this month, andLightwave 6 will be available before the end of the year. For moreinformation visit www.apple.com or www.newtek.com.

Alias|Wavefront, producers ofaccredited character animation and visual effects tool Maya, have announceda significant upgrade to the product; an upgrade which brings important newtools to 3D animators and effects artists. Version 2.5 comes complete withMaya Paint Effects: a revolutionary new tool which allows artists to createand animate stunning organic and painterly effects almost instantly. PaintEffects features an extensive library of 2D and 3D preset brushes, which

The Tampere 30th International Short Film Festival takes place in Tampere,Finland from March 8 - 12, 2000. Entry deadline is December 7, 1999. As thebiggest short film event in Northern Europe, the Tampere Festival features80 screenings, a film market, and seminars. For more information contact:Tampere International Short Film Festival, Box 305, FIN-33101, Tampere,Finland; Tel. + 358-3-213 003; Fax: + 358-3-223 0121; or E-mail:film.festival@tt.tampere.fi. Also visit www.tampere.fi/festival/film.

mental images recently announced that its high-end Mental Ray renderingsoftware was the first workstation application to run on Intel's firstengineering samples of the IA-64 Itanium-based platform. mental images andIntel have been working hand-in-hand to create a version of Mental Ray thatwas ported and optimized for the Itanium processor. The new platform wasdemonstrated to attendees of the Intel Developer Forum in Palm Springs byIntel CEO Craig Barrett on an early version of Microsoft's 64-bit version

Previously, we reported that Warner Bros. Home Video had announced that THEIRON GIANT DVD would be letterboxed at 1.85:1, which would have beenunfortunate because the film has a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and Brad Birddesigned THE IRON GIANT partly in homage to the very wide CinemaScope filmsof the 1950s. But Warners has changed their mind and the DVD will beletterboxed at 2.35:1. THE IRON GIANT DVD will include letterboxed (2.35:1)and pan & scan versions of the movie, be 16X9, have AC3 and 5.1 surround

Image Entertainment is releasing Art Clokey's DAVEY AND GOLIATH on DVD andVHS. DAVEY AND GOLIATH was a stop-motion television series that was made byGUMBY creator Art Clokey for the Lutheran Church in America from 1962 to1977. It was usually shown on Sunday morning. In the series, Davey, a boy,and his dog, Goliath, would usually get into some sort of trouble, butlearn a moral lesson by the end of the story. The DAVEY AND GOLIATH DVDwill include eight 14 minute episodes. It is not region coded. Image is

Burbank, California-based The Walt Disney Co. has reported a drop infourth-quarter profits. The entertainment company, which owns a filmstudio, a TV network (ABC) and runs theme parks around the world, said netincome fell to $85 million, or 4 cents a share, from $296 million, or 14cents a share, in 1998. Disney's earnings for its fourth quarter whichended September 30 included charges for acquiring Internet search serviceInfoseek Corp. Excluding the charges, profits fell 37 percent to $212

Charles Schulz, the 77-year-old creator of the PEANUTS comic strip, hassecured final go-ahead to build a museum as a permanent home for CharlieBrown, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the gang. Plans for the17,000-square-foot Peanuts museum in Santa Rosa, California, a town 50miles north of San Francisco, where Schulz continues to work in a studio hebuilt twenty-five years ago, were unanimously approved at a city councilmeeting October 26, 1999. Schulz and his wife first suggested the idea of a