AWN Headline News

NEW! * Friday, February 25, 2000 - Thursday, March 2, 2000. Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.

CARTOON NOIR comes to LA. This multi-technique film is a feature-length

compilation of animated shorts from American and European artists. Featured

in CARTOON NOIR are: APE, Julie Zammarchi's darkly comic critique of

monogamy, meat eating and the daily pattern of human brutality; ALTAIR,

Lewis Klahr's collagist elegy on New York nightlife; CLUB OF THE DISCARDED,

NATPE is one of the leading television markets and conferences in the

world. The event in New Orleans offers animation and special effects

companies a rare opportunity to showcase their work to a global audience.

NATPE 2000 will offer a vast array of exhibitors gathered in pavilions such

as Animation/Licensing sponsored by KidScreen; Cable sponsored by ATVC

(Asociacion Argentia de Television por Cable); HDTV/Visual Effects

sponsored by SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers);

On Friday, January 14, 2000, Walt Disney International-Latin America

announced the launch of the Disney Channel Latin America and an exclusive

satellite television distribution agreement with Galaxy Latin America, LLC

for DIRECTV service in Spanish-speaking Latin America. "Launching the

Disney Channel in Latin America in 2000 is an exciting initiative for the

Walt Disney Company," said Diego Lerner, president and managing director,

WDI-Latin America. "As we have in other parts of the world, we will now

Toronto-based RED ROVER's directors Andy and Linzi Knight created the

"subliminal" message for the Molson Export "Subliminal" spot. The 30-second

spot slyly transforms the bubbles in a glass of beer into the image of

three go-go girls dancing to "And the Beat Goes On." The spot was produced

for McClaren McCann of Toronto. Linzi Knight said, "This is the kind of

commercial people look forward to seeing because they're always looking to

see if they notice anything else going. That kind of viewer attention is

London-based collective, CURIOUS PICTURES and TOMATO, created the blend of

type graphics and stock footage for an RCA spot entitled "Static." Graphics

weave together images of static, distortion and color bars, until finally a

crisp picture of the two RCA Dalmatian mascots appear to illustrate the

growth of television from its early days to HDTV. The spot ends with the

tag "RCA. Changing entertainment. Again." Graham Wood directed for Curious

Pictures/Tomato and Quiche Campbell produced.

On January 3, 2000, Activision, Inc. and id Software released QUAKE III

ARENA for Macintosh. The on-line multiplayer game features 26 deathmatch

and four capture-the-flag levels. The title is available at a suggested

retail price of $49.99. id Software offers such titles as Wolfenstein 3D,

DOOM, DOOM II, QUAKE and QUAKE II.

Tom Snyder Productions, the creators of DR. KATZ: PROFESSIONAL THERAPIST,

have been assigned to create a new animated comedy series for Oxygen,

Geraldine Laybourne's new network to launch February 2, 2000 to accompany

the Web site of the same name. The comedy series titled HEY MONIE is based

on the life and longings of a single African-American professional woman in

big city America. This is the first network animated series based on an

African-American woman and her friends. The show is scheduled to air on

RENEGADE ANIMATION created their third in a series of 30-second Trix Yogurt

spots for New York-based ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The spot starts out

with a group of sad kids in a black & white colored world until they taste

Trix Yogurt. They use their spoons as magic wands to paint the world in

bright colors. The cel animated spot was directed by Darrell Van Citters

and produced by Jeff Poehlmann of Johnson Burnett Productions.

RADIUM's Inferno artist Alaina Goetz created effects for two Mervyn's

California commercials. In "Yo-yo," Goetz takes live-action footage of a

dancer and puts them into a yo-yo that spins and jerks off the screen. In

"Kung-fu," Goetz creates the transitions between scenes by creating

rice-paper doors that slide in front of the camera. Radium's Andrea Mansour

produced the project for Minneapolis ad agency Martin/Williams.

In December 1999, Mill Film announced that they united operations with

sister company Magic Camera. The combination will create a formidable

start-to-finish London-based feature film facility mixing Mill's visual

effects talent and technical strengths with the digital effects, miniature

construction and photography of Magic Camera and Magic Models. Antony Hunt

will serve as managing director of Mill Film and will take charge of day to

day operations of the combined companies. Hunt has been at the helm of