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Animation Headline News

Nicolosi Joins Snowyville Feature

Dream Balloon Prods. has announced that celebrity pop artist Nicolosi will be teaming with art director Paul "Kit" Stolen and writer/director/producer Michael Attardi on SNOWYVILLE, an animated feature based on the short ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS VILLAGE. In addition to the art design for the film, Nicolosi will be part of the marketing and after-market properties for the production.

Million Headline News

Bourne Breaks August Records

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM not only broke records for the franchise and spy thrillers, but also for the month of August, posting an estimated opening weekend cume of $69.2 million, beating out former record holder RUSH HOUR 2 by $2.8 million. Last weekend's #1 film, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, fell 65%, bringing in an estimated $25.1 million, which raises its cume to $128. 6 million for the weekend period ended Aug. 5, 2007. UNDERDOG debuted in third with approximately $12 million in box office receipts.

Film Headline News

Tirana Int'l Film Fest Wants Your Shorts

Tirana International Film Festival 2007Tirana, Albania Nov. 26 - Dec. 2, 3007Deadline: Sept. 30, 2007

Tirana International Film Festival is open to well-known artists as well as students, representatives of all schools, contemporary, independent and alternative cinema from throughout the world. Part of the festival is also a special program, which includes all forms of film production -- feature, documentaries and animated films more than 30-minutes in length.

Headline News

AMD Offers New ATI FireGL Workstation Graphics Accelerators

At SIGGRAPH 2007, AMD (booth #1102) announced five new high-performance ATI FireGL workstation graphics accelerators for CAD, DCC and medical imaging professionals. The ATI FireGL V8650, FireGL V8600, FireGL V7600, FireGL V5600 and FireGL V3600 graphics boards are based on the next-generation ATI GPUs with an innovative unified shader architecture featuring up to 320 individual stream processing units.

Dreamworks Headline News

Paul Allen Selling Holdings in DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation announced today (Aug. 6, 2007) that DW Investment II Inc. ("DWI II"), an entity controlled by Paul Allen, will sell approximately 10 million shares of the company's Class A common stock in a registered public offering underwritten by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. Allen is also resigning from the animation company's board of directors.

Company Headline News

Disney Collects Pet Robots

Coming out of Comic-Con, Walt Disney Pictures has snatched up the film rights to Scott Christian Sava's graphic novel, PET ROBOTS. Benderspink's Chris Bender and J.C. Spink are developing the project with producers Jake Weiner and Jon Silk.

After visiting the Rooty Tooty Toy Company, four kids are followed by four military robots.

Animation Headline News

Savannah College of Art & Design Enrolls Goldman as Artist in Residence

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) announced today at SIGGRAPH 2007 that legendary animator Gary Goldman, known for such animated classics as THE SECRET OF N.I.M.H. and ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN, and the videogames DRAGON'S LAIR and SPACE ACE, will join the college as an artist in residence in Savannah, Georgia.

Goldman will teach traditional 2D animation to graduate and undergraduate students in the School of Film and Digital Media, as well as give a campus-wide lecture on animation during the college's 10-week winter quarter in January 2008.

College Headline News

Mt. San Jacinto College Animates High School Students

This fall, Mt. San Jacinto College plans to hold animation and video classes for high school students were they could earn college credits, reports THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE. In May, the community college was awarded a Strengthening Career Technical Education Programs grant worth $250,000. The grant will pay for training high school teachers, grow industry partnerships and launch an animation and video festival.

Software Headline News

Softimage Unveils XSI 6.5 and Face Robot 1.8 at SIGGRAPH 2007

Softimage Co. launched the latest versions of its 3D animation software packages: SOFTIMAGE|XSI 6.5 and SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOT 1.8. Softimage also announced plans to repackage its Essentials and Advanced versions of SOFTIMAGE|XSI 6.5 software to meet the specific needs of artists and studios, respectively. The latest version of SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOT will offer enhancements for game development pipelines, along with hours of new training material.

Animation Headline News

Massive 3.0 Debuts At SIGGRAPH 2007

Massive software released a major new upgrade to the Academy Award-winning, AI driven animation system, Massive 3.0 showcased at its SIGGRAPH 2007 booth #1428. Massive 3.0 delivers improved dynamics, dynamic hair and fur, lanes, layer simulations and more.

Effects Headline News

Imageworks to Highlight Spider-Man 3, Surf's Up and Beowulf at SIGGRAPH 2007

Sony Pictures Imageworks will showcase its diverse range of CG work and digital effects at SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego, Aug. 6-9.

The company will show its noteworthy work from SPIDER-MAN 3 and SURF'S UP, each with a distinct look and opportunity for breaking boundaries into new realms of visual effects and CG animation, and preview its upcoming work on BEOWULF.

Autodesk Headline News

Autodesk Gets Mudbox 3D With Skymatter Acquisition

Autodesk Inc. acquired substantially all the assets of Skymatter Limited, the developer of Mudbox 3D modeling software. Autodesk anticipates that the transaction will close in the next two months. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Headline News

Massive to Offer mental ray Support

Massive Software announced native support for mental ray in Massive. mental ray is software for high-end, photorealistic rendering. Massive is artificial life-based software for producing realistic character animation with up to hundreds of thousands of autonomous performances.

Motion Headline News

Mova & Gentle Giant Demo Moving 3D Sculpture of Live-Action Performance

Performance capture studio Mova and Gentle Giant Studios are unveiling a unique 3D Zoetrope that uses persistence of motion to bring to life a series of 3D models of an actor's face captured live by Mova's Contour Reality Capture System in booth #1229 at SIGGRAPH 2007 in San Diego this week.

Events

The Asian Karaoke Idol Invitational (TAKII) 4 ~Rhythm D-Generation X-Treme~

By Guest (not verified) | Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 11:00am
Begins: August 5, 2007

"Ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, children of all ages". PDNMZ CD Shoppe, along with sponsor club The Lost Otakus (TLO), is proud to announce to you the 4th season of its cult-classic Asian music/video gaming fusion festival, The Asian Karaoke Idol Invitational (TAKII), FREE & appropriately subtitled "Rhythm D-Generation X-Treme"!

Events

BlueCat's The Art of Screenwriting Workshop

By Guest (not verified) | Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 11:00am
Begins: August 4, 2007

Sundance Film Festival Award Winner and BlueCat Founder Gordy Hoffman is coming to Rochester, New York from Aug. 4-7, 2007, and Bozeman, Montana from Aug. 18-19, 2007, to lead all-day workshops on the art of screenwriting.

The Art of Screenwriting Workshop will include topics such as selecting an idea, finding your creative voice, scripting effective dialogue, compelling character arcs, the rewrite, effective story construction, audience relationship, work habits and discipline, production alternatives, industry awareness and more.

Festival Events

Muuuvi International Film Festival 2007

By Guest (not verified) | Friday, August 3, 2007 at 11:00am
Begins: August 3, 2007

Muuuvi International Film Festival will be organized this year for the third time in Lazarea (Transylvania) in a medieval castle. Lazarea is a village, very close to Gheorgheni. The aim is to ensure new opportunities for filmmakers from Romania and abroad who produce shorts and animation.

The event will also organize different workshops, featuring some of the filmmakers who will also participate in Q&A with the audience. The festival will also have a retrospective on the super 8 camera. For more information, visit www.muuuvi.ro.

Anime Events

Anime Festival Orlando 8

By Guest (not verified) | Friday, August 3, 2007 at 11:00am
Begins: August 3, 2007

Anime Festival Orlando is a three-day festival of all things related to Japanese animation and pop culture held at the Wyndham Orlando Resort. Ticket prices are only $45 for a three-day membership badge, $20 for a Friday or Sunday Only wristband and $30 for a Saturday Only wristband. Growing in attendance nearly 20% each year since its inception in 2000, Anime Festival Orlando has earned the title of "Florida 's Favorite Anime Convention," as well as being voted one of the "Top 10 Things To Do In Orlando" by DK Publishing's Travel Guide.

Technology Headline News

Feher to Create New Media Technology Organization for NBC Universal

Darren Feher, evp/cto for NBC Universal, will take on a new role to create a media technology organization dedicated to digital product innovation and emerging technology. Feher will add new technology and engineering teams concentrating on the areas of digital asset management, content distribution, production and commercial planning across NBCU's broad portfolio of assets.

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