Magnet Media Inc., as part of its award-winning Digital Media Training Series, has shipped self-paced training DVDs for Apple’s Final Cut Pro 4 and Adobe’s After Effects 6.

Discreet has announced one of its largest desktop software sales to date with long-time partner The Art Institutes. The schools will distribute more than 4,000 licenses of 3ds max, character studio, combustion 3D and cleaner software to its 29 locations in the United States and Canada. Last autumn the Arts Institute purchased more than 2,000 licenses.

eyeon Software has endorsed Oregon3D as the premier, professional training center for Digital Fusion, eyeon's 2D compositing and special effects solutions. The first training center in the U.S. to offer continuing courses on Digital Fusion, Oregon3D's 10,000-square-foot facility provides the working surroundings and equipment used by professional creative artists in the film, game, TV and visualization industries. Oregon3D's first series of eyeon classes will start by winter of 2003.

The Art Institute of Tampa, a branch of Miami International University of Art & Design, has received approval from The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design, media arts & animation, multimedia & Web design, interior design or game art & design, as well as the Associate of Arts in graphic design or multimedia & Web design. The new institution will hold classes for the first time in January 2004. The school will be located at 4401 North Himes Avenue in Tampa, Florida.

Tri-Dimensional Studios of Tampa, Florida has launched The Maya Training Center, a state-of-the-art computer animation training facility specializing in intensive training for Alias' Maya. Designed to meet the needs of professionals and enthusiasts alike, The Maya Training Center provides Maya 3D animation training via its Tampa-based state-of-the-art classrooms and remotely through onsite training at their client's location.

The Gnomon Workshop has released a new installment in its Dynamics training for Alias’ Maya DVD series. “Dynamics, 14: Advanced Sprite Rendering” includes 120 minutes of instruction, project files, lecture notes, resource spotlights and bonus materials. The DVD was produced by Andrew Orloff, principal and VFX supervisor at Zoic Studios. The DVD explains the tools, with a focus on workflow, using a wide range of examples including wind-blown seed pods, a sea of microbes, depth-of-field effects, tossed coins and crowd simulations.

Milan International Film Festival (MIFF) has announced that it is providing two students the opportunity to study at Los Angeles Film School (LAFS). Since 2001, MIFF and LAFS have collaborated to award deserving students the tuition necessary to attend the course of their choice. This year, in addition to the one full-year scholarship given in previous years, another scholarship for the six-week digital imaging courses will be offered. The scholarship is open to all high school graduates. The deadline to apply is November 15, 2003. Scholarship winners will be notified by December 15, 2003.

Most people want to go home from work and school and enjoy THE SIMPSONS on television, but some diehard fans and media students have taken it up as a course of study at South Carolina State University, which offers the course, “Postmodernism, Parody, Pastiche: Deconstructing THE SIMPSONS.” According to a report in THE NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 25 SCSU students are enrolled in the college class taught by professor Carlene Dellinger-Pate, who finds deep meaning in cartoons, and plans to explore the question, “What keeps us laughing at this text for so long?”

Video Symphony, a Hollywood TV, film and DVD education center, has received approval to issue between one and 20 visas to enable international students to travel to California to enroll in classes. Located in Burbank, California, Video Symphony is an authorized training center for Avid, Apple, DigiDesign, Sonic Solutions, Adobe, Alias, Boris and Newtek. The center provides professional-level instruction in post-production for feature films, TV, video and DVD.

The Animation Club at The Art Institute of California --San Francisco (www.aicasf.aii.edu) has made its mark on the computer graphics and animation world by forming California's first student chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the world's largest organization of computer graphics professionals.