Leading kids and family entertainment specialist DECODE Ent. has signed up Rocket Licensing as the U.K. licensing agent for its hit preschool property FRANNY'S FEET, the adventures of a little girl with magical shoes. The company has already completed a deal for costume characters with Rainbow Prods. for Europe.
This week in AWN's Forums, a senior member is considering buying a cintiq, but wishes she could find a way to use one before investing a lot of dough.
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One-on-one training to help you to pitch and sell your TV shows. 3 day summit of development, pitch practice and more.
Catered event held at Universal Studios Orlando.
Special guests include network executives, producers and screenwriters.
In this month's "Mind Your Business," Mark Simon goes face to face with the value of the face-to-face meeting in this virtual world.
New Line's RUSH HOUR 3 (with vfx from ILM, Halon Ent. and Element FX, among others) debuted with a box office rush of $49.1M for the weekend period ended Aug. 12. Meanwhile, Universal's record breaking THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (with vfx from The Senate, Lip Sync Post and Snow Business) finished second with $32.8M after a 51% drop off, with a two-week cume of $131.5M. Fox's THE SIMPSONS MOVIE followed in third place with $11.2M, good enough for a $152.3M tally.
Szemletek Visionaudial FilmreviewPecs, HungaryOct. 25-28, 2007Deadline: Sept. 20, 2007
NVIDIA will offer in the fourth quarter the Quadro Plex Visual Computing System (VCS) Model S4, a graphics server featuring a record number of GPUs in a standard 1U server form factor. The new server contains more Quadro graphics processing power in less space than has ever been achieved before, enabling interactive visualization of extremely large-scale data sets by multiple users with a minimal footprint.
After attracting 24,043 to San Diego last week for SIGGRAPH 2007, the 34th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, the 2008 edition will institute fundamental conference changes to bring attendees a synergistic, educational experience resulting from a content selection process that affords focus on timely industry themes rather than strictly on presentation type. The conference changes will be enacted in 2008 and are also anticipated to further foster more fluid cross-program collaboration.
Aero Theater is hosting a 7:30 pm Los Angeles premiere screening of AFRO SAMURAI, (2006, Takashi OKazaki, Gonzo/Samurai Project/FUNimation, 125 min (5 episodes)). This samurai story, with a revolutionary animation style and hip-hop flavor, tells the tale of a black swordsman set in a futuristic, yet feudal, Japan who is on a mission to avenge the wrongful death of his father. Samuel L. Jackson voices the title role of "Afro," a mysterious warrior who travels a solitary path encountering a myriad of enemies, friends and challenges beyond imagination.
This pseudo-critique of the Catholic church has as much depth as a piece of artistic social rebellion as someone running into a church and screaming obscenities at the top of their lungs when no one else is around. Possibly amusing to the perpetrator, but no one else. Director Ken Russell strings together every possible image and/or action that could offend a devotee without any real substance behind it. Further diluting this "expose" is the setting of 17th Century France when it is clear the modern church is its target, yet never clearly laying out what point, if any, it wants to make about the modern church. This self-indulgent mess will most certainly ruffle the feathers of the more prudish viewer, however everyone else will be laughing their pants off at the absurdity of it all.
The Sotsu Agency and the Sunrise Animation Company are hosting Gundam Expo Tokyo 2007 at Tokyo's Ikebukuro Sunshine City complex. The free event will feature previews of the upcoming MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 00 television series as well as displays of the newest plastic models, figures, games and other items. The event will also FEATURE BB WARRIORS: ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS, the newest SD Gundam line.
MediaBridge Youth Fest is a two-day film festival curated by 14 youth ambassadors from China, Palestine, the U.K., Serbia, Slovenia, India, Mexico and Puerto Rico and 11 Illinois teens. The international short films and feature were selected by MediaBridge participants from a pool of nearly 200 films through a process of dynamic small-group debates.
The Egyptian Theater is hosting a 7:30 pm JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH/ WORLD WITHOUT END double feature. First up is a new 35mm print of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, (1959, 20th Century Fox, 132 min.), directed by Henry Levin. Along with Richard Fleischer's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, this is one of the finest versions of a Jules Verne novel ever filmed, with James Mason beautifully cast as an obsessive Scottish geology professor who descends into the depths of the Earth with eager student Pat Boone, alluring widow Arlene Dahl, and sinister nemesis Thayer David.
The Family Friendly Film Festival is back and bigger than ever! After its phenomenally successful launch last year, the Family Friendly Film Festival will return for ten jam-packed days of screenings, workshops and events to entertain all the family
A fantastic selection of short and feature length films from across the globe will be screened at family friendly venues across Greater Manchester, including The Manchester Museum, The Zion Arts Centre, The Imperial War Museum North, The Opera House, The Science and Industry Museum, Stockport Plaza and the Odeon.
In this month's column, Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman tackles two hot topics -- the Hamas-produced Mickey Mouse look-alike and the dawn of the iSeries, aka Ben 10.
Sony Online Ent. (SOE) is teaming up with Sir Richard Branson and Deepak Chopra's Virgin Comics to bring the India-based RAMAYAN 3392 A.D. comicbook universe to PCs via an MMO videogame.
The new motion-capture company, Mobility Art Studios, has launched in Hyderabad, India, says THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The two-stage facility will use Vicon MX-F40 motion-capture cameras on projects for the film, TV, commercial and game industries.
As part of its business plan, the company will also offer cleanup services. In the future, it hopes to open a separate cleanup division and an online performance library.
Sierra Ent. announced development of THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES, a videogame based on the upcoming 2008 theatrical release of the same name by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Films. The game, which will recreate the fantastical world of the film and bestselling book series, is in development at Stormfront Studios and will be available for Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and PC in February 2008.
FIDO helmer Andrew Currie has been hired to direct Fox Atomic's comedy SPACE INVADER, starring Will Arnett, who will produce with Peter Principato and Paul Young, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
Written by Mike Lisbe and Nate Reger, the story follows the son of a NASA legend, who must overcome his fear of flying and join the space program when his girlfriend is picked to fly to the International Space Station with the hottest male astronaut around.
Robbie Brenner and John Davis will exec produce.
Riding the popularity of the box office's favorite giant robots in TRANSFORMERS, 20th Century Fox-based New Regency is in final talks with the Mark Gordon Co. to bring VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE to the big screen as a live-action film, VARIETY reports. Gordon has been developing the project and previously hired Justin Marks (HE-MAN) to pen the script.
Marvel Studios has tapped STARDUST helmer Matthew Vaughn to direct the screen adaptation of THOR, reports VARIETY. Marvel hopes to beat out loaming strikes by starting production this winter. I AM LEGEND scribe Mark Protosevich penned the screenplay.
First hitting comicbooks in 1962, Thor is a god whose arrogance leads his father Odin to transport his son into the body of disabled medical student Donald Blake, who, until discovering his thunder hammer, does not realize he is a god.
Alain Bielik is transported to the land of Stormhold and discovers how the vfx wizards conjured up the world of Stardust.
A few months back the American Film Institute announced its 10th anniversary edition of its 100 Years 100 Movies List of the best American films of all time. Taking a note from Sight & Sound's famed best of all time list, AFI will be revamping the list every 10 years to allow in newer films that were not eligible previously as well as gauge changing thoughts on cinema. Films moved up and down the list and 23 films were replaced with other films. Only three films that fell off really surprised me. THE THIRD MAN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and PATTON really deserve to stay on the list. With GIANT falling off too, does it mean that James Dean has lost some of his iconic status in the last 10 years? Other films that fell out of favor, which deserve the place as the best of all time include AMADEUS, FANTASIA, CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE THIRD KIND and FARGO. But I'm not going to shed any tears that JAZZ SINGER or AN AMERICAN IN PARIS dropped from the list.
Frank Wu, the San Francisco writer and filmmaker, is coming to the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society's open meeting on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007, to show his 11-minute animation, THE TRAGEDIE OF GUIDOLON THE GIANT SPACE CHICKEN. A representative from the Cartoon Network will be present, since Wu is pitching GUIDOLON as a series for their Adult Swim programming block. The public is welcome.
Dark Horse has acquired the enormously popular seinen manga series, GANTZ. Hiroya Oku, creator of GANTZ, has put together a cast of characters that are both sympathetic and strong in a hardboiled universe of ultra-stylish violence, pathos and sexiness. The wildly renowned anime, also entitled GANTZ from ADV, primarily follows the same story and has been translated in several different languages.
