AWN Headline News

In December 1999, Mill Film announced that they united operations with

sister company Magic Camera. The combination will create a formidable

start-to-finish London-based feature film facility mixing Mill's visual

effects talent and technical strengths with the digital effects, miniature

construction and photography of Magic Camera and Magic Models. Antony Hunt

will serve as managing director of Mill Film and will take charge of day to

day operations of the combined companies. Hunt has been at the helm of

South Africa-based Triggerfish Animation, a leading stop-frame animation

company in South Africa, is currently shooting animation sequences for the

South African SESAME STREET, using an assortment of different materials

including local contemporary art work, creating a unique African feel to

the production. In addition, Triggerfish is shooting a 30-second commercial

using 7 plasticine characters for a new product being launched in South

Africa and Australia called Slo Jo -- a fruit smoothie.

DIGITAL DOMAIN helped Plum Productions create a virtual jungle/city for the

new Fiat Punto spots. Plum Productions' director Eric Saarinen worked with

Digital Domain's visual effects supervisor Paul Kirsch to create a city

full of people riding around on lion, tigers, and bears. The Punto drives

in showing how different it is compared to the other animals on the street.

Digital Domain had the complex job of combining five-days of greenscreen

shooting on the Paramount backlot into a coherent flow. "We made the

* Monday, January 31 - Saturday, February 5, 2000. San Roque, Cadiz, Spain.

22nd International Short Film Festival of San Roque is open to all films

under 30 minutes made after January 1, 1997. Categories will include

fiction, animation and documentary. Cash prizes range from Euros 3,000 to

900. For more information contact Ilusre Ayuntamiento de San Roque, Semana

Internacional del Cortometraje, Cine-Teatro Alameda Alameda de Alfonso,

11360 San Roque (Cadiz) Espana; Tel.: ++ 34 (9)56-781074; Fax: ++ 34

* Thursday, February 10, 2000. Chicago, Illinois, USA.

The 29th Mobius Advertising Awards is a yearly event recognizing

outstanding television and radio commercials, as well as print advertising

and package designs. The competition is open to television commercials and

campaigns which have been produced, screened or aired in the past 12

months. The animation-related categories include: Animation-Computer,

Animation-Non-Computer, and Animation-Computer & Non-Computer. For more

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. announced the

simultaneous worldwide VHS release of George Lucas' STAR WARS: EPISODE I

THE PHANTOM MENACE. Young Jedi wanna-bes around the globe will snag their

copy the week of April 3 - 8, 2000. The biggest box office hit of 1999 and

second highest-grossing motion picture of all time worldwide, will official

go on sale in North America on Tuesday, April 4, 2000. The US$922 million

PuppetTime Inc. recently announced that it has released version 1.0 of its

PuppetTime Producer software, an easy to use 3D character animation program

that the company claims makes "the TV-watching generation, the TV-making

generation." PuppetTime Producer is not a character animation package for

animators, but a package for non-animators which allows them to create

'movies' quickly and easily without any knowledge of animation technique at

all. Users can create 3D animation in minutes simply by selecting