AWN Headline News

As expected, STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 - THE PHANTOM MENACE set a record forsingle day gross on Wednesday with $28.5 million, breaking the previousrecord of $26.1 million set by THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK in 1997 on theSunday during the three day Memorial Day weekend. The previous record for aWednesday opening was $17.4 million, set by INDEPENDENCE DAY in July 1996.Despite reaching a new record, the film failed to fulfill early predictionswhich were in the range of $30 to $40 million and were based on early

TRON, Disney's innovative computer-animated feature, is set to return to the big screen for a special one-week limited engagement (May 14-20) at the Disney-owned Pacific El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, USA with a new 70mm print. A special panel discussion on May 14 and 15 will feature several filmmakers involved with the 1982 production including director Steven Lisberger, visual effects supervisors Harrison Ellenshaw and Richard Taylor, and computer-image choreographer Bill Kroyer (who went on to direct TECHNOLOGICAL THREAT and FERNGULLY: THE LAST RAINFOREST).

Elfriede Fischinger died quietly in her sleep at her home on Thursday, May13, 1999. She was born September 17, 1910, in Gelnhausen near Frankfurt,Germany. She attended the prestigious College of Design in Offenbach, andin 1931 one of her abstract textile designs won a prize and was publishedin a magazine as well as exhibited in Berlin, where she met her futurehusband, animator and painter Oskar Fischinger. They were married in 1933and she worked on many of his subsequent films. In 1936 they emigrated to

The EUROGRAPHICS Symposium on Visualization takes place Wednesday, May 26 -Friday, May 28. Vienna, Austria. It will feature research papers about allareas of visualization that will present original scientific ideas orsignificant improvements to existing techniques, as well as case studies onthe successful application of visualization methods to special problems.Contact info: Eduard Groeller, VisSym '99 Institute of Computer Graphics,Vienna Univ. of Technology, Karlsplatz 13/186/2, A-1040 Wien, Austria.E-mail: vissym99@cg.tuwien.ac.at.

TWEETY: TWEET & LOVELY gives US fans of the lovable little canary and hisalways-hungry pursuer, Sylvester, 10 of their funniest Warner cartoons.Included are "Red Riding Hoodwinked," "Fowl Weather," "A Pizza Tweety Pie,""Tugboat Granny," "Rebel Without Claws", "Tweety's Circus", "Greedy forTweety", "Hawaiian Aye Aye", "Tweet and Lovely", and "Catty Cornered". 66min. Warner Home Video. US street date: June 22. $14.95. TWEETY: HOME TWEETHOME includes ten more cartoons featuring Tweety and Sylvester. "Birds

A release date for Aardman Animations/DreamWorks' eagerly awaitedstop-motion feature, CHICKEN RUN, has been announced for June 23, 2000 inthe US. Fifteen minutes of completed footage were recently shown toenthusiastic Aardman employees in England. The film is being directed byAardman co-founder Peter Lord and Nick Park (The Wrong Trousers, CreatureComforts), and is described as The Great Escape with chickens. DreamWorksSKG will distribute the film in the U.S. and most international territories

In its second week of release, THE MUMMY, Universal Studios' CGI-laced revival of its mummy series remained on top in the weekend US box-office charts, grossing $25.1 million to bring its total to $80.8 million. The primary digital effects for THE MUMMY were created by Industrial Light & Magic. THE MATRIX, another effects driven action film, continues to do well, finishing third and taking in $4.5 million to bring its total gross to $145.1 million.

Arts Unlimited, a 5-week summer program for children in grades 4-8, has added three animation classes to its arts curriculum. The classes will be taught by Wendy Jackson and will introduce animation techniques such as zoetropes, flipbooks, clay, cut-outs, drawing on film, and pixilation. Jackson will also teach a classin giant puppetry. Additional program offerings include ceramics,calligraphy, computer art, dance, mixed media, music, publishing, and