Savage Steve Holland, co-creator of "Eek! the Cat," has signed on with the William Morris Agency for representation in all fields. He will be repped by Rob Wolken, Spencer Baumgarten and Greg Lipstone. He is currently creating, writing and directing DIC's "Sabrina, the Animated Series." In addition, he's also written and directed live-action films including "Better Off Dead" (1985) and "One Crazy Summer" (1986).

Canadian-based CINAR Films has signed an agreement with Shanghai Animation Film Studio, a subsidiary of Shanghai TV, China’s second largest broadcasting company, to co-produce a 52 ten-minute episode animated series called “Rumble and Growl.” The Chinese-developed educational series chronicles the adventures of two friends, Rumble and Growl, who are always hungry. In their quest to find food, the pair uncovers scientific wonders and never-before explained natural phenomena. This is the first-ever official Canada-China co-production for an animated series created in China.

Sunday, November 22, marked the end of the 7th Holland Animation Film
Festival 1998. Awards were presented for both the international competition
for applied animation and student films. The jury for the international
competition for applied animation consisted of Garri Bardin (Russia), Paul
Bush (United Kingdom), Dingeman Kuilman (The Netherlands), Adriaan Lokman
(The Netherlands), and Linda Simensky (United States). They chose the
following films to receive the Golden Pegbar Awards:

Not only are the RUGRATS burning up the big screen but they're also setting
records on the small screen. A Thanksgiving-themed episode, "The Turkey Who
Came to Dinner," which aired on November 10 garnered Nickelodeon's biggest
ratings ever among the age 2-11 demographic. The special outperformed all
competition, even broadcast networks, in its time period earning a 9.4/28
national rating share (3.7 million viewers) among kids 2-11.

Bandai's AnimeVillage.com is the first video releasing company in the US that enables consumers to purchase Japanese animation directly through the Internet. The site also features the latest animation news from Japan, real-time chats, games, message boards, and contests. AnimeVillage.com's initial release slate includes the "Gundam" series and "The Vision of Escaflowne" with plans to expand their library up to 200 titles by the end of 1999.

Berlin, Germany-based animation studio, Hahn Film is launching production studios in Taiwan and Vietnam. Each studio will employ about 150 people, and will be devoted to digital ink and paint services, initially for Hahn projects, but may branch out to service other studios in the future. The first studio, called Saigon Graphics Enterprises, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is already up and running, working on the production of the animated series "Wild Life," which is being distributed by Hit Entertainment and is pre-sold to the Fox Family Channel (U.S.), the BBC and Nickelodeon (U.K.).

The Sitges Fantasy Film Festival wrapped up on October 16 in Barcelona, Spain. The international jury for the "Anima't" animation festival within a festival was comprised of Jerry Beck (U.S.A.), Mercedes Gaspar (Spain) and Giorgio Valentini (Italy). They selected "Un Jour" by Marie Paccou (France) as Best Film, and gave an Honorable Mention to "Glassy Ocean" by Shigeru Tamura (Japan). In the main festival, Bill Plympton's film, "More Sex & Violence" won the "Best Short Film" award.

Paris, France-based Gaumont Multimedia and Hamburg, Germany-based IGEL Media have reached a multi-year, multi-million dollar first-look distribution agreement giving IGEL all television and home video rights on future Gaumont Multimedia animated series for Germany, Scandinavia, Japan and Korea. The deal, sealed at MIPCOM, reflects both companies' need to address the increased competition and decreased number of broadcast slots available in Germany and Asia.

Robert McNeel & Associates will be releasing the final version of Rhino
3D, a powerful NURBS-based modeling package, this month. The software, which
has undergone an extensive public beta program (for the last 2 years), will
be available for Windows 95, 98 or NT, and is designed as a companion to
packages like 3D Studio MAX and Lightwave. Priced at $795 US, the package
boasts features such as 3D digitising support (for Microscribe 3D and Faro),
surface and solid modeling, an intuitive UI, and support for all major 3D
file formats.

OTTAWA WINNERS. The Ottawa International Animation Festival wrapped up on Sunday night with an awards show at the National Arts Center in Canada’s capital city. The grand prize went to the new Estonian film, “Night of the Carrots,” by Priit Pärn who was on hand to accept the award as the festival also hosted a four-part retrospective of Estonian animation.