* Thursday, October 15 - Sunday, October 25. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.


The 15th Annual Chicago International Children's Film Festival (CICFF), presents over 150 films and videos for children from 30 countries in a juried competition. For information call (773) 281-9075 or e-mail kidsfest@facets.org.

MICROSOFT has renewed its contract with TOTALLY HIP SOFTWARE for the licensing of GIF animations used in Microsoft’s software. Randall McCallum, CEO of Totally Hip, said, “Using our own technology to develop content for Microsoft products provides our development team with feedback that has helped make WebPainter an award-winning Web design tool.” Read a review of WebPainter in the April 1997 issue of Animation World Magazine.

* Wednesday, October 21. Burbank, California, U.S.A.


ASIFA-Hollywood presents “An Evening With Art Leonardi” hosted by Tom Sito. Leonardi was an animator on Friz Freleng’s unit and has worked on “Pink Panther,” “Tiny Toons” and “Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories.” The event starts at 7 p.m. and admission is $5. Call (818) 842-8330.

* Saturday, October 17. Burbank, California, U.S.A.

Laguna Hills, California-based CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY, INC. (CETI) has introduced two new high-end graphics workstations: ProStation GS 400D and ProAlpha GS 667. The workstations, which cost $9,995 and $12,875 respectively, are compatible with animation software such as Alias|Wavefront’s Maya, Softimage 3D, Lightwave 3DKinetix’s 3D Studio MAX, and others.

Three executives have been promoted at NICKELODEON’s New York headquarters. MARJORIE COHN has been upped to senior vice president of current series. She was previously vice president/executive producer of current series, and has been with the company for ten years. ALISON DEXTER has been upped to senior vice president of production operations and planning. She was previously vice president of production operations, and joined the company in 1991 as a line producer. SERGEI KUHARSKY has been promoted to senior vice president of brand and franchise management.

* Saturday, October 17. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.


The Association of Science and Technology Centers’ conference, ASTC '98, takes place at the Edmonton Science and Space Center. Boston-based animation studio FableVision will have a booth to introduce their new interactive media guru, Brad Larson. For information, visit www.astc.org.

* Wednesday, October 14. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.


The University of Southern California’s (USC) Animation department presents a screening of abstract animated films by German artist, Bärbel Neubauer. The artist will be in attendance. A chronological selection of films will be screened, including her latest film, “Firehouse.” The screening will take place in the School of Cinema-Television’s George Lucas Building, room 108. For this special screening, the public is welcome to attend. No phone calls, please.

Toon Boom Technologies has released the Windows NT version of its USAnimation software package. Seoul, Korea-based Sun Woo Entertainment is the first studio to place an order for the new product. The studio is already using the SGI version of the software, and will now have a multi-platform set-up that allows the NT and SGI platforms to be used simultaneously.

* Tuesday, October 20 - Sunday, October 25. Reykjavík, Iceland.


The 12th Nordic Children’s Film Festival will take place. A variety of Nordic productions, including animation, will be screened. For information, contact childrenfestival@iff.is.