Stanford University is offering a new program called the Stanford Academy for New Media. The academy is offering week-long sessions in 3D Modeling/Animation, Web Design and Digital Video, beginning July 2, 2001. The program is for artists, educators, and high school and older students. In addition to the current offerings, the school will be adding a Maya OSX track later this summer taught by several well-known 3D artists. For more information, visit newmedia.stanford.edu.

Tigar Hare Studios has expanded its corporate offices into a new 5,000-square-foot, 20 workstation digital facility in Sherman Oaks, California. The company has also expanded its operations internationally through the establishment of a Flash division in Malaysia and an affiliation with Shanghai Digital Studio in Shanghai, China. The companies in Malaysia and China offer an additional 100 workstations and a real-time optical motion-capture system. Tigar Hare has arranged the alliance with China to create 3D animation at lower costs for U.S. producers.

After a successful 10-year run, J.J. Sedelmaier Productions -- producer of the animated favorites BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD, THE AMBIGUOUSLY GAY DUO, THE X PRESIDENTS, FUN WITH REAL AUDIO and dozens of commercials -- has tossed out its film stock for digital technology. "It's not like we haven't been using digital techniques for years now," said Sedelmaier. "We've used Virtual Magic (formerly USAnimation) for some time, but now we won't be using film in-house, not even for pencil tests.

Creative Planet, Inc., AWN’s parent company, announced on Monday, April 30, 2001, the release of the Animation Budget Builder, a custom add-on for the industry-standard Movie Magic Budgeting software geared for the animation industry. The add-on was designed by Catherine Winder and Zahra Dowlatabadi, authors of the upcoming book, PRODUCING ANIMATION, and represents broadening interest in the development of Movie Magic software. "For years, Movie Magic Budgeting has been a fantastic tool for budgeting and managing the costs of physical production," said Winder.

SGI on April 20, 2001, announced their third consecutive quarter of increased revenue growth and improved operating performance. For the quarter ending March 31, 2001, the company posted revenue of $510 million, compared with $487 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2000, which represents a 5% increase. The company reported a net operating loss of $47 million for the quarter, excluding charges, compared with a net operating loss of $93 million in the previous quarter.

According to industry sources and other published reports, Walt Disney Co. is planning cuts in both jobs and salaries at both their Burbank, California and Orlando, Florida Animation Feature studios. Coming on the heels of Disney’s recent announcement of company-wide layoffs and staff reductions totaling 4,000 employees, these cuts further illustrate the fiscal realities of both the increasing cost and decreasing profitability of the studio’s current animated feature production unit.

Walt Disney Co. beat Wall Street earnings expectations with improved results in some business units, but restructuring charges from its Go.com operations resulted in an overall second-quarter net loss of $548 million. Excluding the $1 billion charge resulting from the closing of the money-losing Web portal and an accounting change, for the quarter ending March 31, the company reported second-quarter earnings of $391 million, or 19 cents a share, compared to a year-ago figure of $291 million, or 14 cents a share.

Animation
production house Toon Factory has finalized a deal with Luxembourg's
Neuroplanet and Canada's Vivatoon for co-production of the television
series KID CLONES IN SPACE. The two companies join Toon Factory and
French broadcaster TF1 as full co-production partners. Toon Factory
recently acquired all the rights to the property from the UK's
Cosgrove Hall, which will continue to work on the series' artistic
direction. Currently in development, the series is set to begin

TV-Loonland has signed a
seven-year licensing agreement with Russia's Nox Music, providing the
Moscow-based company with video, television and merchandising rights
to 963 half-hour series episodes. The new agreement applies to the
territories of CIS/Russia, the Ukraine and the Baltic States of
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and involved productions from
TV-Loonland's own studios as well as subsidiaries Sunbow
Entertainment and Telemagination. Nox was founded by Iosif

Film Roman announced on Friday, April 6, 2001, that their board of directors has rejected last minute changes to the previously announced Pentamedia stock purchase agreement, and extended the deal close date to April 13 pending continuing discussions between the two companies. Under the terms of the existing agreement, Pentamedia was set to acquire a fully-diluted 60% stake of Film Roman in the form of newly issued common stock for $15 million in cash.