On Friday, March 3, 2000, Belgian animation film director and illustrator Nicole van Goethem passed away unexpectedly at the age of 58 in her hometown of Antwerp. The cause of death is unknown. Since 1974, Nicole van Goethem has worked on various animation productions, serving in the background, color selection and special effects fields. Among her credits, she participated in the feature length film TARZOON produced by Picha.
With strictly live-action fare reigning the U.S. box office, SNOW DAY slipped to sixth place, while PITCH BLACK remained steady in fifth place. Paramount's kid-pic, with special effects by Curious Pictures, fell from #2, grossing US$4.8 million this past weekend and bringing its total gross to $49 million. USA Films' PITCH BLACK, with primary visual effects by Double Negative Ltd. and The Chandler Group, clocked in at #5 for the second straight weekend, grossing $5.07 million raising its total gross to $29.7 million.
IFILM, a leading Internet resource for film fans, filmmakers and film
industry professionals, has increased their fold by three. The company
announced the appointments of Kevin Wendle, a co-founder of CNET and Fox
Broadcasting Company, as chief executive officer; Doug Sylvester, a
co-founder of E! On-line, as president and chief operating officer; and Tom
Harbeck, former head of programming for the Sundance Channel and a senior
Nickelodeon marketing executive, as the company's Senior VP of programming,
The final adventure of MASTER OF MOSQUITON, THE VAMPIRE comes to video.
VOLUME 3 will fly into stores March 28, 2000. The teenaged tomb raider
Inaho and her undead partner Mosquiton face off against the sinister
Rasputin and Mosquiton's ex-wife, the dreaded Carmilla! The adventure will
hit stores at the price of US$19.98.
THOSE WHO HUNT ELVES CHAPTER 6: FINAL TRIALS invades homes across the U.S.
With new cameras, designer furniture and gourmet coffee, the elven world is
slowly looking more like planet Earth. Unfortunately, other earthly
standards have invaded the peaceful world like shady political takeovers,
diabolical plots against the elf hunters, and a crooked court out to
convict our heroes. Will Celcia betray them on the witness stand? Will
Ritsuko ever get a chance to graduate? Will Airi get home to claim her
Plympton's new series of comics extracted from the comic book, "Sleazy
Cartoons of Bill Plympton," is for ADULTS ONLY...
Test your skills and challenge your brain with AWN's Animation Trivia
Quiz...
The 72-page festival catalog provides information in three languages
(French, Dutch, English) on all exhibitions, making of presentations,
retrospectives, biographies of festival guests, as well as technical,
production, story summary and distribution data on films. Available for
$6.00 plus s/h. The
line includes a rare selection of videos, featuring pioneer Belgian
On Thursday, March 2, 2000, South Carolina's Democratic Senator Ernest
Hollings of the Senate Commerce Committee told Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin
and AOL chairman Steve Case that the "Disney people are afraid to come
testify" about their concerns regarding the proposed merger of the two
companies. Hollings told Levin and Case, who were in Washington D.C.
testifying about their merger, that Disney is concerned that Time Warner
will retaliate against the company by relegating its cable networks to
The promised land of prime time nirvana will escape GOD THE DEVIL & BOB in
Salt Lake City, Utah, whose NBC affiliate has refused to air the network's
upcoming animated comedy. KSL-TV VP and general manager Al Henderson said
the station decided to pre-empt the "not-so-heavenly" toon because it "was
not very funny." "We didn't think it was written well," Henderson said. "We
found some of the humor tasteless." The new series follows the
misadventures of Detroit auto worker Bob Alman (voiced by French Stewart),
3Dlabs, Inc., a professional graphics firm, has expanded its presence in
Europe with a new office near Frankfurt, Germany. 3Dlabs plans to use the
new branch as a base for expanding its market coverage in Central Europe,
one of the largest markets for its workstation graphics products. In turn,
3Dlabs announced the appointment of Frank Losch as country manager. Mr.
Losch brings many years of marketing and sales expertise to the new
position. "The ability to increase market penetration of Oxygen workstation
The newest Scooby-Doo adventure, SCOOBY-DOO MEETS THE BOO BROTHERS, and
classic episodes on DVD will soon float into stores across the U.S.
Debuting on March 14, 2000, SCOOBY-DOO MEETS THE BOO BROTHERS has the
heroes Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy-Doo inheriting a haunted house from
Shaggy's uncle. The terrified trio calls for help from the Boo Brothers, a
family of ghost hunters. But wait, the Boo Brothers are ghouls themselves!
Check out the new adventure to find out if Scooby really hired ghost
Fans of the BUBBLEGUM CRISIS series can catch the new adventures in
mid-March. VOLUME 4 -- RAMPAGE will pop into stores on March 14, 2000. A
new terror clouds over Tokyo. An evil entity runs amok, pulling its victims
into the sewers and devouring their flesh. The Knight Sabers, Genom and the
AD Police all join in a desperate search to find and destroy the monster.
The English dubbed version is priced at US$24.95 and the Japanese with
English subtitles version is priced at $29.95.
March focuses on Production Technology and has a number of special
contributors and features. J. Paul Peszko discovers how DreamWorks
integrated digital technology with traditional animation for their latest
release "The Road to El Dorado." Eric Huelsman interviews Mike Milne, the
man behind the amazing "Walking with Dinosaurs," a show which took Britain
by storm and is now coming to the U.S. Howard Beckerman takes a historical
look at a few early "real-time" animation techniques, like Mobilux Lumia.
Big Idea Productions, producers of the popular children's video collection
"Veggie-mania," is looking for a VICE PRESIDENT of PRODUCTION. . . Wam!Net
is seeking a PRODUCTION MANAGER to be responsible for managing a large
scale render farm and supporting production from Visual Effects Studios,
post-production facilities and design/engineering groups working remotely
via the company's network. . . New Zealand's Weta Digital seeks world-class
Be a part of Playboy's rich heritage of cartoon humor. Participate in
Playboy's Comix and Animation Contest. All multimedia formats welcome:
Shockwave, Flash, videotape, pen and ink and more! Grand prize winner
receives $25,000. Five honorable mentions will also be selected. Judges
include Scott Adams, Award winning creator of Dilbert, and Kevin Smith,
Writer/Director of hit films "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma." The deadline for
submission is April 1, 2000. As with any contest there are lots of rules
The M.P.S.C. Local 839 IATSE, the labor union for screen cartoonists and
CGI artists and technicians in southern California, has updated its
website...
Bill Plympton has updated his
In the next months, his
films will be appearing in various festivals and other events around the
world. Bill will be attending the Newport Film Festival, Newport, RI, USA;
Annecy Animation Festival, Annecy, France; Florida Film Festival, Maitland,
FL, USA; and Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films, Zagreb, Croatia.
Now posted, a new Career Coach, our monthly column by Pamela Thompson, a
noted authority on jobs and recruiting within the animation and visual
effects industries...
Now you can print out all of your favorite Visual Magic articles quickly
and easily with our printer friendly pages...
Warner Bros. proudly presents an new adventure from Bedrock entitled THE
FLINTSTONES STONE-AGE ADVENTURES. Rolling into stores March 14, 2000, the
new escapade features 6 episodes from the classic FLINTSTONES TV series.
The promotion coincides with the theatrical release of the new live-action
FLINTSTONES movie VIVA ROCK VEGAS! The pre-historic price for the tape will
be US$14.95.
On Wednesday, February 23, 2000, the U.S. Recording Academy's premiere
recording awards, the Grammies, were presented, and a few toon-related
tunes took home golden statuettes. In the category Best Musical Album For
Children: "The Adventures Of Elmo In Grounchland" beat out "A Bug's Life
Song-Along" and Walt Disney's "Mannhein Steamroller Meet The Mouse." TARZAN
won for Best Soundtrack Album over THE PRINCE OF EGYPT and THE MATRIX.
Beating John Williams' score for THE PHANTOM MENACE, the award for
TOM & JERRY'S GREATEST CHASES is running into stores on DVD and VHS at the
end of March. The new compilation will feature 14 classic TOM & JERRY
cartoons. The DVD will feature the classic dance sequence with Jerry and
Gene Kelly from the film ANCHORS AWEIGH! Racing into stores March 14, the
DVD will be priced at US$24.98 and the VHS at $14.95.
ADV Films brings more anime to VCRs and DVD players with the adult drama
SAKURA DIARIES VOLUME 1 on March 15, 2000. The story follows the main hero
Touma's mishaps in trying to court Meiko, who only dates college boys. The
flick is from famed manga creator Ujin. The suggested retail price for the
DVD is US$24.98 and for the VHS $19.98. The DVD features English, Japanese,
and Japanese with English subtitled versions.
The big kids at Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a Gen-Y geared on-line
programmer, have received much-needed play money to the sum of US$24
million. The new round of financing includes investments from NBC, Chase
Capital Partners, Enron Broadband Services Inc. and Intel, among others.
Missing from this round of financing is former Warner Bros. chairman, Terry
Semel. However sources say he has separately invested $2 million in the
company. Santa Monica-based DEN has also restructured its management team,
