This week's updates to the Calendar
of Events includes ten new events for
2000, including the Nordic and Baltic Animation Festival Fredrikstad
(former Oslo Festival - in May); Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films
(June); as well as the L!censing (June) and SIGGRAPH (July) shows. The
Calendar of Upcoming Events is a constantly changing reference source for
what's happening around the World of Animation. Use it to stay abreast of

Vivid Animation, a new high-end CGI animation studio specializing in
sophisticated digital characters and animated effects for commercials and
interactive media, has been formed by Jeff Lotman, CEO. "Vivid Animation
opens its doors with a trio of world-class digital animators as its
creative nucleus," said Lotman, CEO. This nucleus, all of whom come from
senior positions at Digital Domain, includes Animation Supervisor, Stephane
Couture, Digital Effects Supervisor, Gonzalo Garramuno and Vivid

The Academy Award-nominated, animated short film, LUXO JR., will accompany
TOY STORY 2 for its Thanksgiving release. Directed by John Lasseter (TOY
STORY, A BUG'S LIFE), LUXO JR. debuted at SIGGRAPH in 1986 to wide praise
of its integration of classic character design with a new level of visual
realism. "LUXO JR. was the first computer animated film where the story and
characters were more important to audiences than the fact that it was made
with a computer," said Lasseter, Pixar's Executive Vice President,

ASIFA-Hollywood and Glendale Community College present the
Fourth Annual Lecture Series on "Production Management" with guest speaker,
Kellie-Bea Cooper. Cooper, Production Manager at Phil Roman Entertainment,
has produced award winning independent shorts in both traditional animation
and computer animation which have been featured by SIGGRAPH. She has also
worked with several studios including Jim Henson Interactive and Warner
Brothers. Her background includes work in live action, interactive, Web,

Digital Processing Systems (DPS), recently released a new animation and
compositing Studio Digital Disk Recorder, dpsReality. Designed for
animators, 2D artists and broadcast designers, dpsReality is based on a
newReality hardware system debuted by DPS at SIGGRAPH 99 and IBC 99.
dpsReality features include a cuts editor for clip preview and final video
output, real time graphic overlay, and four track audio with volume and pan
control. It also ships with a modified version of Eyeon Software's Digital

It's fall and that means new TV! In this month's issue, Amid Amidi tells us
about the newest shows hitting the air. Sharon Schatz gives us insight into
the world of interactive television. Interactive television has been
available around the globe for years, but has only just come to the United
States. We also go behind the scenes of Bob Clampett's "Time for Beany,"
one of television's first daily live puppet shows, Japan's Toei Animation
Studios and one of France's hottest pilots, "Fats and Moe." We also have a

NPAR 2000 is the first international
symposium dedicated to non-photorealistic animation and rendering,
including cartoon animation systems and techniques. It takes place at the
International Animated Film Festival of Annecy, France, July 5-9, 2000 in
conjunction with ACM/SIGGRAPH and Eurographics. The symposium will bring
together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry, showcase
cutting-edge research in non-photorealistic animation and rendering systems
and techniques, and present examples of these techniques in original

August is a full month for Animation World Magazine as we delve into the
growing and constantly changing fields of Computer and Internet Animation.
Bob Miller goes one on one with Brad Bird, director of "The Iron Giant."
And Karl Cohen interviews Rob Coleman on the making of Star Wars Episode I:
"The Phantom Menace." Looking to make your own computer animated short?
Mike Amron discusses the cost effective software and set ups available for
such an undertaking. On the Internet animation side of things Buzz Potamkin

Animators in the TV, Film, and Video Game industries are achieving realistic 3D character animation economically and quickly using the suite of motion capture tools available from Motion Analysis Corporation of Santa Rosa, California. At SIGGRAPH 99, the company demonstrated the latest versions of its products.


"We have customers using our ExpertVision system to capture 1,000 moves a
week to produce a 22-minute TV show in only 10 days using just a dozen
animators. The economy and efficiency of producing digital entertainment

Key Blue Sky staff are taking part in a number of events throughout the conference:


- "Bunny" the Oscar Award Winning short film from Blue Sky
Studios will close each showing of this year's SIGGRAPH '99
Electronic Theater at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The conference and exhibition is being held from August
8-13th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.


- Chris Wedge will be speaking at the Wiltern Theatre in Los
Angeles on Monday, August 9th at Noon as part of the
Softimage SIGGRAPH user group meeting.