AWN Headline News

Frank Gladstone, Head of Artist Development at DreamWorks, and Clifford Cohen, founder and president of AnimAction, have joined forces as members of UNICEF's International Animation Consortium for Child's Rights to create an animated PSA that addresses the Right to a Name and a Nationality. The PSA will be screened on June 4 at the Annecy Film Festival in Annecy, France. Also at the Festival, Mr. Cohen will speak about "How Animation Can Change People's Thinking."

In opening statements in the second phase of a $250 million breach-of-contract lawsuit, Jeffrey Katzenberg's lawyer Bert Fields presented a series of memos to bolster his argument that Disney concocted a contract argument over an incentive bonus to deprive Katzenberg of the money he was owed for making the Disney company a success while he was the chief of Disney's film entertainment division. During Katzenberg's first few years at Disney, operating income went from $2.3 million in 1984 to $186.3 million in 1988.

The recently concluded Cartoons on the Bay festival in Poistano, Italy has announced its awards. The Golden Pulcinella for best character went to the Little Entertainment Co.'s BILLY, an animated British TV series for pre-schoolers about an infant daydreamer. The Golden Pulcinella for best program went to Folimage's CHARLIE'S CHRISTMAS, a French TV film about an abandoned child's friendship with a postman.

SGI's Silicon Graphics(R) Onyx2(TM) visual workstation will be used toproduce and project the world's first scientifically accurate 3D atlas ofthe Milky Way Galaxy at the new Hayden Planetarium as part of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space in New YorkCity, which opens in 2000. As the centerpiece of the Hayden's 68-foot"virtual dome" Space Theater, Silicon Graphics Onyx2 will manipulatemassive scientific datasets containing billions of stars -- 100,000 times

Nichimen Graphics, Inc. (Nichimen), a manufacturer of technology for the 3Dcontent creation market, and Viewpoint(R) Digital, Inc. (Viewpoint),creator and publisher of a 3D digital content library, have releasedNendo(TM) & LiveArt(TM) SE Workshop, a combined graphics software packagethat provides 3D modeling and rendering tools for $99 (suggested retailprice).

The Workshop consists of Nendo v. 1.1, Nichimen's award-winning 3D modelingand 3D paint software, and Viewpoint's LiveArt SE software, with the

D.FILM and The New Venue in association with Atom Films and Evan's StarWars Cinema present a new online Star Wars-inspired filmmaking contest. Toenter, send in a short script for a Star Wars spoof. Short means very short- a story that can be told in two minutes or less. A panel of celebrityjudges (headed by a prominent member of the original Trilogy cast) willreview the scripts. At the end of April, the judges will select a script,and hand it over to a team of innovative digital filmmakers, including

The Cartoons on the Bay International Festival of Television Animation will be held April 20-24, 1999 Positano, Italy.

BBC1 has bought another season of New York-based BKN's POCKET DRAGONADVENTURES. The first season currently airs in the U.K. Monday and Thursdayat 3:45 pm on BBC1, averaging 1.3 million viewers, which represents about a37% share. The series features the mischievous little Pocket Dragons whoseek adventure in a magical world of wizards, knights and gargoyles.

Action's New Independent Talents Contest is aimed at the independent 3Dartist. Prizes include hardware and software as well as transfers to 35 mmfilm so that films may be shown in movie theatres. There is no entry fee.Deadline for entries is October 10, 1999. For more information visitwww.club-internet.fr/films-action.

TOPIX/Mad Dog has completed the animation for "Stick People," a :30 spot,with a :15 lift. The colorful, playful spot, which promotes Crayola ColorWipeoffs, removable water-based magic markers, for TBWA/Chiat Day (Toronto,ON) and Binney & Smith Canada (Markham, ON), rolled out throughout CanadaMarch 15th and will continue to air through the end of the year. In it, aboy's stick figure drawings come to life. "With Photoshop I drew thefigures, frame by frame, so that it's a bit like cel animation, but not

Yale University's Child Study Center, a division of Yale Medical School,has chosen New York's School of Visual Arts' Animation Department to createan animated film for use in autism research studies. The animation willtest the brain systems involved in social understanding, allowinginvestigators to test specific hypotheses about autism. The animatedexperiments will portray human interaction with geometric shapes. ReevesLehmann, Chair of the School's Film Video and Animation Department, is the