AWN Headline News

Euro Disney has announced plans to open THE DISNEY STUDIOS, a second themepark in 2002 near the existing Disneyland Paris theme park inMarne-La-Vallee, east of Paris. The park will include attractions based oncinema, animation and television, similar to the Disney-MGM Studios at WaltDisney World in Orlando, Florida. Visitors to the park will be able toobserve animators working, special effects demonstrations and the filmingof TV programs. "The goal is that visitors pass through the movie screen

Mary Kocol's MY FATHER'S STORY screens with the documentary featureUNCOMMON FRIENDS. The screenings take place October 1 - 7 in New York atthe Cinema Village Theatre at 22 East 12th Street. Tel. (212) 924-3363. Formore information visit www.KocoMotion.com.

This year's SITGES Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya featuresseveral animation related events including a short film competition, thepresentation of Hayao Miyasaki's PRINCESS MONONOKE, and tributes to OsamuTezuka and Will Vinton. The festival takes place Wednesday, October 6 -Saturday, October 16 in Barcelona, Spain. For more information Tel. 34 93419 3635, or visit www.sitges.com/cinema.

Every fan who dreamed of building a car like Speed Racer's Mach 5 will beinterested to know that Speed's ultra-cool car is finally being built byLong Beach, California-based Focus on Cars, an automotive fabricationcompany that caters to the entertainment and advertising industry. The carwill be used to promote a nation-wide safety tour conducted by The ChildSafety Network (CSN) called CHILD SAFETY DAY AT THE RACES. The Mach 5 willprivately debut at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show -

New York City-based Oxygen Media, Geraldine Laybourne's media companyfounded to provide content for women, has named eight executive producers,seven of whom are new to Oxygen's team, to guide the development ofOxygen's growing online network, including building five new sites - Style,Sports, Teens, O2 Simplify, and womenshands - as well as expanding thepopular existing parenting site, Moms Online and Oprah.com. The new andexpanded sites will be rolled out this winter. Oxygen's online executive

Sony Pictures Family Entertainment's ROUGHNECKS: STARSHIP TROOPERS hasfallen behind schedule. Although the show is currently in syndication byBKN (Bohbot Kids Network), only nine out of forty episodes have beencompleted and several episodes have already been repeated with many morerepeats expected. Burbank, California-based Flat Earth Productions optedout of its fifteen episode production contract after completing only threeepisodes because they felt the schedule with the budget was overly

New York City-based THE ATTIK has completed two :30 spots for Sol Beer andagency Amster Yard. In "Disco" a beer acts as a disco ball, emittingstrobing lights. In "Rock N Roll" the can emits electrical charges,creating a pulsing energy field. James Sommerville directed, and both spotswere created with After Effects, Infinity, Studio Pro and Media 100. JulieWatkins of New York City-based Manhattan Transfer completed the compositein Inferno.

Animation-Books.com, in association with ANiMATO!, the animation magazine,has announced the results of an internet poll of the best animation booksof all time, and THE ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION by Frank Thomas andOllie Johnston tops the list. While the list may be biased toward morerecent, easily available English publications, few would argue that this,for once, is a solid list, and every title belongs in one's animationlibrary. According to Animation-Books.com, "Polling for the

Macromedia, Inc., leading publisher of Web publishing tools such asDreamweaver, Fireworks and Generator, is offering a multi-city Generator 2Seminar and Training Series for Internet professionals seeking successfulonline solutions for e-business, e-commerce, financial services, news &information and advertising. Generator 2 delivers targeted, real-timegraphics and interactivity for Web sites that feature on-demand content.Attendees will learn how Ford Motor Company, Internet Shopping Network and

New York-based SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION has completed "Cold Start," a spotfor Prestone antifreeze, for agency Grey Advertising. Spontaneous used 3DStudio MAX to create the engine and antifreeze. Live-action footage wasproduced by New York-based Zero 2 Sixty.

Every year since 1991, the organization CARTOON, with the support of theMEDIA program of the European Union, selects one European short animatedfilm as the "Cartoon d'Or," or "best European animation film." This year'swinner, announced at the Cartoon Forum in Corboda, Spain (September 22-26),is MIGRATIONS by Constantin Chamski (France). The 4-minute CGI film isdistributed by France-based Heure Exquise! where it was also produced. Thisyear's other nominees were L'ARME DU CROCODILE by Eric Blesin (Belgium), EL

The Museum of Television and Radio in New York and Los Angeles hosts aretrospective of Hanna-Barbera's television series with a series of60-minute screenings. The series includes SCOOBY-DOO, THE FANTASTIC FOUR,SPACE GHOST, SUPERFRIENDS, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, MAGILLA GORILLA, TOPCAT, RICOCHET RABBIT, and YOGI BEAR. The new Spumco/Cartoon Network YOGIBEAR shorts have sparked a debate among fans regarding the quality ofHanna-Barbera's YOGI BEAR shorts in particular, and Hanna-Barbera's