AWN Headline News

WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION has promoted DUNCAN ORRELL-JONES to theposition of vice president of finance. In his new role, Orrell-Joneswill oversee operational finance and accounting for Feature Animation'sworldwide operations, including Disney's Burbank, Orlando and Parisanimation studios. Since May 1997, Orrell-Jones has served as thedirector of finance and planning, during which time he has been responsible for developing and managing Feature Animation's labor, expense and capital

Digital Leisure has released SPACE ACE DVD-ROM, the sequel to DRAGON'SLAIR. As one of the first animated video games in history, Space Acefeatures non-stop video entertainment. The evil Commander Borf haskidnapped Ace's girlfriend, the beautiful Kimberly, and is plotting toenslave the Earth using his dreaded "Infanto Ray," a weapon that changeseveryone it blasts into a helpless baby. Game enthusiasts can choose toguide Ace, or his weak alter-ego Dexter, through Borf's strongholds to

On November 19, Tim Burton's first film since MARS ATTACKS!, SLEEPY HOLLOW, which features a CGI Headless Horseman created by Industrial Light & Magic, will be released. McFarlane Toys, the company responsible for the excellently crafted SPAWN action figures, is releasing several SLEEPY HOLLOW figures. The figures began appearing in retail stores the first week of November, including Toys 'R Us, KB Toys, comic book shops, Spencers, Musicland/Sam Goody, Electronics Boutiques, Babbages, and others.

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