Will Vinton Library On-line
Will Vinton Studios will be offering home video titles from their library on their Web site www.vinton.com. The Academy Award winning CLOSED MONDAYS, The California Raisins and the Mr. Resistor collection will all be available on the site. Additional titles, as well as Will Vinton merchandise, will be added to the site in the months to come.
New Jobs: Animators, Digital Artists, Directors, Visual Artists And More...
London, UK-based ADN Entertainment, a new UK company aiming to
leverage technological innovations in graphics and visual fields and
apply them to feature animation, is looking for a FEATURE FILM
DIRECTOR...
Rumpus Readies On-line Mega-Movie
Rumpus.com is readying their 45-minute Internet epic HERSHEL HOPPER, NEW YORK RABBIT. The kids animation destination will broadcast the film featuring their Hershel Hopper character on Easter Sunday (April 23, 2000) at 3 pm. The film follows the mishaps of Hershel as he is unwittingly shipped to New York City. Currently, Rumpus is airing a music video previewing the adventure. The Webpic features the voice talents of Jason Priestley, Brad Renfro, Brendan Sexton III, Sean Thomas and former New York City mayor Ed Koch.
Mission Hill Wins Cartoons On The Bay
In the television competition at Cartoons on the Bay, Warner Bros.'
beleaguered series "Mission Hill" took home the prize for best
over-all animation series. The 4th Cartoons On The Bay International
Festival of Television Animation was held in Positano (Amalfi Coast),
Italy from April 14 - 18. Cartoons on the Bay is the only festival in
the world dedicated to television animation. The festival is an
international event with awards, workshops, lectures and events
Aardman's Angry On AtomFilms
Aardman Animations will be releasing Darren Walsh's ANGRY KID on the Internet at AtomFilms. The first 60-second episode of ANGRY KID will be available for download midnight on Sunday, May 7, 2000 at a specially developed Angry Kid spotlight on the AtomFilms site at www.angrykid.com. "We believe the Internet could very well prove to be one of the most exciting platforms for entertainment distribution," said Dave Sproxton, co-founder and managing director of Aardman.
The Acrobat Issue Of Animation World Magazine Is Now On-Line
This Month: Voice Acting And Music & Sound...
Register Now And Save Up To 20% At L!censing 2000 International
The global deal marketplace for the business of licensing takes
center stage in New York City, June 13-15, 2000, with L!CENSING 2000
INTERNATIONAL...
MIP TV 2000 Scored A Hit With Over 11,000 Participants
11,111 participants representing 2,776 companies from 100 countries
gathered in Cannes for the 37th edition of MIP TV which closed on
Friday April 14, 2000. The countries most represented in terms of
stands were: France (191), US (188), UK (177), Canada (85) and
Germany (76). In terms of participating companies the countries most
represented were: UK (443), France (422), US (372), Germany (173) and
Canada (139); more than 500 of them came from media and Internet
The April 2000 Issue Of The Peg-board Newsletter Is Now Available
The M.P.S.C. Local 839 IATSE, the labor union for screen cartoonists
and CGI artists and technicians in southern California, has updated
their page with the April 2000 edition of their newsletter, "The
Peg-Board"...
AWN's Brand New Calendar Of Events
AWN has just launched a brand new Event Calendar, complete with
searchable information...
Plympton's Comic Of The Week
Plympton's new series of comics extracted from the comic book,
"Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton," is for ADULTS ONLY...
This Week's Animation Trivia Quiz
Test your skills and challenge your brain with AWN's Animation Trivia
Quiz...
Store Specials: The Vilppu Quick Sketch Manual
Prestigious life drawing instructor Glenn Vilppu is now offering The
Vilppu Quick Sketch Manual, with 22 pages of drawings from his
sketchbooks...
Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival
* Wednesday, April 26 - Sunday, April 30, 2000. Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A.
King Of The Hill Worth $300M On Syndication
Twentieth TV has signed a cable-TV rights deal for KING OF THE HILL with the Fox Channels Group. Either FX or Fox Family Channel will get the series in September of 2004 on a four-year licensing deal. Twentieth TV has licensed out the series to syndicated networks for US$3 million dollars per episode. The series will start airing off-network in the fall of 2001. So far, Twentieth TV is nearing $300 million in off-net syndication deals for the series.
South Park Team Lured By ABC
BROADCASTING AND CABLE has reported that SOUTH PARK creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are currently being lured by ABC to create new material for the network. Currently, Comedy Central pays the team of tastelessness between US$400,000 to $500,000 per episode for SOUTH PARK. Reportedly, ABC is offering the cross-dressing crew $1 million per episode for the new programming. THE NEW YORK POST reported that Comedy Central has countered ABC by offering the SOUTH PARK partners artistic freedom on a new series, an offer ABC could never make.
Prague's None Of The Above
Prague-based SAF Studia Animovaneho Filmu.a.s. is currently producing a series of short inserts for a Disney TV pilot, NONE OF THE ABOVE. The primary client for the project is Tapehouse Toons in New York. The clips are being produced by Zdenka Deitchova, senior producer at Animovany Film Prague. The project is being produced in cooperation with Frame, s.r.o., who are providing the computer animation and special effects facilities.
Teacher's Pet Part Of Disney's Saturday
Walt Disney has announced that the new animated series TEACHER'S PET will join ABC's "Disney's One Saturday Morning" line-up this fall. Tony award-winner Nathan Lane will voice the knowledge-fiend dog, Spot, who disguises himself as a boy to go to school. TEACHER'S PET is being produced at Walt Disney Television Animation by the team of cartoonist Gary Baseman and Emmy Award-winning primetime sitcom writers Bill & Cheri Steinkellner (CHEERS, THE JEFFERSONS).
Shockwave's New Look
Shockwave.com, a leading Internet entertainment destination, has launched the next generation of its award-winning site. The new home page is designed to have a "virtual" home theater look. Visitors entering the site encounter a home living room environment where entertainment consoles appear on the screen and invite Net surfers to watch shorts, play games or listen to music. Users may choose from several themes to create their preferred overall look and feel of the home page.
Mounties' CINAR Findings Filed
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) filed their first documents in the CINAR Corp. tax fraud case. According to the report CINAR received at least CA$7.8 million (US$5.4 million) in Quebec provincial tax credits by allegedly placing false Canadian names on scripts written by U.S. writers to receive tax credits. In the report, RCMP says that several executives, including former co-CEO and co-founder Ronald Weinberg, asked former CINAR employee Thomas Lapierre to create subcontracts that would be used to pay U.S. scribes.
GT Interactive Gobbles Humongous' Assets
GT Interactive Software Corp. announced that in an effort to boost its Humongous Entertainment children's software division, it would fold the company's existing operations into the GT Interactive arm. The New York-based gaming company will adopt a unified corporate direction, similar to that of GT Interactive's majority owner Infogrames Entertainment. Infogrames hopes that the new arrangement will increase shareholder value and produce a re-energized company.
Mission Hill Wins Cartoons On The Bay
In the television competition at Cartoons on the Bay, Warner Bros.' beleaguered series MISSION HILL took home the prize for best over-all animation series. The 4th Cartoons On The Bay International Festival of Television Animation was held in Positano (Amalfi Coast), Italy from April 14 - 18. Cartoons on the Bay is the only festival in the world dedicated to television animation. The festival is an international event with awards, workshops, lectures and events centering on the ever-changing world of television animation.
The Incredible Mr. Limpet Helmer
BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD and KING OF THE HILL creator, Mike Judge, is in final negotiations to helm the re-make of THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET. The Warner Bros. flick was previously touted as a vehicle for Jim Carrey. However, once original director and scribe Steve Oedekerk (ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS) left the project over budgetary and creative differences, Carrey left too. The original screenplay was written by Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick and then re-worked by Oedekerk. If the new deal goes through, Judge will pen a new version with Clay Tarver (SQUELCH).
Disney Acquires Arabat Quartet
Riding the hopes that fantasy will be hot after LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER, Disney has reportedly signed a multi-million dollar deal to produce the film versions of horror-film-writer-director Clive Barker's new fantasy series THE ARABAT QUARTET. Britain's EMPIRE magazine quotes a Disney spokeswoman as saying, "The work is a combination of HARRY POTTER and a contemporary WIZARD OF OZ." The first in the series is scheduled to hit bookstores next year. Barker's lawyer said that Disney inked the agreement "without reading any written words of the novels."
British Football Star Gets Animated
U.K. football hero and sports anchorman Gary Lineker is about to get the cartoon treatment from the BBC. Lineker's animated alter ego appears in a regular slot on a new BBC1 Sunday morning magazine programme, FOOTBALL FEVER. The segment has been created by Alive Animation, which built up a library of Lineker's movements and expressions on computer. This means the character can be animated at the last minute, allowing for topical script changes. According to the UK newspaper EVENING STANDARD, the technology is so advanced that the cartoon could even be created 'live' on air.
