AWN Headline News

The United States Army will give the University of Southern California $45million over the next five years to establish a research center to developadvanced military simulations. The center will use film students and videogame designers to create realistic training simulations using virtualreality technology and artificial intelligence. This effort is part of theArmy's plan to create higher quality training using more realistic war-typeexercises.

Several movie critics have said that while Universal's new live-actionDudley Do-Right, which opened in the US on Friday, August 27, misses themark, the new cartoon by Universal Cartoon Studios which is playing withthe film, FRACTURED FAIRY TALES: THE PHOX, THE LOX AND THE BOX, is awinner. The cartoon is based on a script by Bill Scott, who wrote most ofthe episodes of the Fractured Fairy Tales series which was originally partof NBC's early 1960s The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show. It was animated for

WARREN LITTLEFIELD, president of the Littlefield company, and CRAIG HUNEGS,Executive Vice President at Warner Bros. Television, will join theATOMFILMS advisory board. Littlefield, former President of NBCEntertainment, and Hunegs will act as advisors in the areas of contentprogramming for the AtomFilms web site as well as for its distribution andsyndication sites. They will also offer advice on building strongrelationships with traditional media companies for broader distribution.

Santa Monica, California-based effects studio METHOD completed the visualeffects for Lauryn Hill's music video, "Everything is Everything."Supervised by senior visual effects artist Alex Frisch, the Method teammade New York City rotate around the Empire State Building like a spinningvinyl record, and one of the city's bridges was transformed into a giantarm that descends from the skies. Method used CGI to create the arm's giantshadow, and Maya software to create all the wide shots of the spinning

Columbia Records will celebrate the 20th anniversary ofthe release of PINK FLOYD's album THE WALL with the release of the film onDVD in October. The film includes animation designed and directed by Gerald Scarfe, who went onto design Disney's HERCULES. The DVD features a new transfer of theoriginal widescreen film, as well as unreleased footage, a remastered 5.1Dolby Digital soundtrack, the 25-minute "making of" documentary THE OTHERSIDE OF THE WALL, and the new 45-minute documentary RETROSPECTIVE, with

Bring the family to meet Scooby-Doo and investigate the arts whilelistening to music at Beverly Hills children's bookstore, Storyopolis.Scooby-Doo will be available for photos, and while listening to the KidRhino audio release, SCOOBY-DOO AND THE WITCH'S GHOST (which ties in withthe direct to video title which is due out on October 5), the kids canparticipate in arts and crafts, interactive storytelling, and a raffle withprizes where everyone is a winner. (The participation fee for the arts and

San Jose, California-based SGI has announced that Robert Bishop has beennamed new chairman and chief executive officer effective immediately. Hesucceeds Richard Belluzzo, who resigned last week to accept at position aMicrosoft Online. Bishop joined SGI in 1986 and was responsible forbuilding its international division. He joined SGI's board of directors in1993 and continued to be an active member of the management team through1995. Prior to joining SGI he had similar responsibilities at Apollo

Ed Hooks will teach a one-day acting for animators class in San Franciscoon September 25, from 10 am-5 pm. The class will include thinking-emotionconnections, thinking-physical action connections, character analysis,basic acting principles (the scene as a negotiation) and improvisations.Also, there will be discussion of shadow movement, psychological gesture,the "look" of memory, eye contact between characters, the importance ofempathy and how to achieve it. Clips from Charlie Chaplin movies will be

Santa Monica, California-based production company STEAM has signed LAWRENCEWYATT as motion designer/director. Wyatt recently directed "Innerlevel," atheatrical commercial for Los Angeles-based KCRW, a National Public Radioaffiliate.