Film Roman, Inc. continues to expand, this time into the visual effects arena. The company best known for THE SIMPSONS has announced plans to acquire visual effects house VanHook Studios and to form a new visual effects division called Forum Visual Effects, to be based out of Film Roman's North Hollywood studios.

Founders Appoint Trustee. Cinar Corporation has reached an agreement in principle to settle the claims against it and certain other defendants in class actions brought in Canada and the United States. The plaintiffs have agreed to receive an aggregate US$25 million in full settlement of the claims against Cinar and such other defendants. The allocation of the settlement amount among the parties was not disclosed and the settlement is subject to approval by the courts in the United States and Quebec. In other Cinar news, company founders Micheline Charest and Ronald A.

Design studio B1 Media has moved its headquarters to a new facility in Studio City, California, more than doubling the size of its previous space, and has added several new staffers to its growing talent base. Previously partnered in multimedia company Barbed Wire, Joshua Hatton has moved to B1 as an animator involved in 2D and 3D animation and motion graphics working on DVD, broadcast design and games. Game producer Jason Friedlander joins B1 from MTV's ROAD RULES where he was responsible for developing and writing game competitions.

Portland, Oregon-based animation house Vinton Studios has acquired Denver-based Celluloid Studios, which specializes in cel animation. Vinton Studios has announced that the two companies will be combined to create a more diverse style of animation, although each studio will retain their company name. Vinton and Celluloid recently collaborated on a 4-minute advertising short for TBWA/Chiat Day’s client Nissan and their SE-R automobile launch.

Global entertainment company peppermint has signed a deal with DIC Entertainment to distribute their eclectic catalogue throughout Asia. Peppermint will have exclusive distribution rights for 59 different titles, representing 1174 episodes, in Asian territories, including Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. DIC's catalog of animation and children's entertainment includes the animated series THE HURRICANES, which follows a soccer team as they tour the world, as well as the popular series' INSPECTOR GADGET and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.

Now under Disney ownership, Fox Kids Europe (FKE) has announced that Buena Vista International Television (BVI-TV), a division of The Walt Disney Company, will service distribution for FKE's Saban library beginning May 1, 2002. The Saban library contains more than 6,300 episodes of children's programming including major franchises such as SPIDER-MAN, POWER RANGERS, X-MEN, DIGIMON, THE INCREDIBLE HULK and INSPECTOR GADGET. FKE owns the television rights in Europe and the Middle East to all children's programming in the Saban library.

Canadian-based media and entertainment company Corus Entertainment Inc. announced that it has successfully completed the sale of Klutz to Scholastic Inc. Klutz was sold for approximately US$43 million in cash plus a three-year earn-out based on revenue. The proceeds of the sale will be used to repay debt. Corus acquired Klutz, a publisher of children's books and related products based in Palo Alto, California, through its acquisition of Nelvana Limited in November 2000. ›

3D animator and visual effects artist Mark Glaser has launched Sway, a 3D animation and digital effects studio serving the commercial and film industries. A two-time Clio Award winner, Glaser was a former CG supervisor at Digital Domain and was co-founder and visual effects supervisor for Station X Studios. Glaser's specialties include photo-real rendering and 3D animation. His credits include spots for Dodge, Nike, Chevy, Sony and Duracell.

French animation studio Xilam has taken over the film and video game rights for the original property KAENA, following the liquidation of Chaman Production by a French court. For nearly 4 years, Chaman Production has been working on the feature-length film and the accompanying video game, but the company was not able to secure a publishing partner and was forced into liquidation. Xilam will take over the CGI production on the film, which is scheduled for release at the end of 2002.

The National Network (TNN) has announced plans to launch an adult animation block of programming in the 2003 season. Headlining the block is GARY THE RAT, a half-hour original animated series starring Kelsey Grammer as the voice of the title character. Gary is a New York attorney who is so unscrupulous and immoral that he wakes up one morning to discover that he's turned into a rat. Rob and Mark Cullen are the writers and creators of the series and serve as co-executive producers, along with Grammer. The series is produced by Grammnet Productions.

Mike and Liz Young of Mike Young Productions (MYP) and Bill Schultz, former nine-year veteran executive vice president of Film Roman, have formalized their current working relationship by announcing the formation of a new partnership. "Although the name on the door says ‘Mike Young Productions’ at the moment, the studio has for the past four years been the mind-meld of three experienced producers -- all of whom are passionate about the business and the art of animated programming," said Mike Young.

The three animation divisions that make up the newly formed Vancouver-based SecondSun Entertainment, are merging under one roof. As of May 1, 2002 3D division Brainchild Studios, 2D division Delaney & Friends Productions and Interactive Game Division Furious Entertainment will begin operation in a combined production and administration facility. SecondSun's new office will be in the heart of British Columbia's film and TV studio district, 15 minutes from Vancouver, in the city of Burnaby.

Jeff Stabenau, founder and former president of Crush Digital, has launched a new company, Blink Digital, to offer content preparation services for a broad range of digital media. DVD authoring will be the focus of the new company, a division of Liberty Livewire, but it will also offer preparation, conversion and optimization services for streaming media, interactive television media and archival digital media formats. Stabenau and former Crush Digital technical director Michael Ory, have been joined at Blink Digital by many other former Crush Digital staff.

Neon Noodle Productions, the U.S. representative and marketing company for Global Animation, has shuttered their Marina Del Rey-based Spectrum Studios. 10 employees from the motion-capture studio have been laid off, confirmed a company spokesperson. In addition, Neon Noodle announced that they have let go the majority of the employees at their Encino-based location and will be operating with a skeletal staff. The company cited the events of September 11th and 2001's threatened actors' strike as reasons for the staff cuts.

Portland, Oregon-based animation house Will Vinton Studios has been named in a lawsuit brought by a janitor who claims that the creators of the animated series THE PJS used his likeness for one of the characters in the now defunct series.

In an effort to further enhance its console development capabilities and game creation for the next-generation consoles, Activision, Inc., has acquired Northern California-based software developer Shaba Games LLC. Under the terms of the agreement, Shaba has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, with Shaba's equity holders receiving 258,621 shares common stock in connection with the acquisition.

The newly formed alliance of Canadian production company CinéGroupe and animation producer Film Roman Studios has begun production on SCI FI Channel's first-ever animated series TRIPPING THE RIFT. The CG-animated series is based on the short film of the same name, with thirteen half-hour episodes slated to debut in first quarter 2003 as part of SCI FI's regular Friday primetime line-up of original series.

Canadian entertainment company Cinar Corp. has released its audited financial statements for the year ended November 30, 2001 and reported a loss of C$42 million (US$26.5 million). The loss is due to a number of items related to the company's ongoing financial trouble, including improper claims for government incentives, which have been subsequently disallowed by both the Canadian and Provincial authorities, as well as monies reportedly embezzled by Micheline Charest and Ronald Weinberg, the cofounders of the company.

Canadian production company CinèGroupe and animation producer Film Roman Studios have entered into a strategic alliance to produce new animated programming. CinèGroupe head of U.S. entertainment Ken Katsumoto and Peter Schankowitz, president of television programming and development at Film Roman, made the announcement on Wednesday, March 27, 2002. The first joint production will be announced next week.

As a follow-up to Barbie's direct-to-video debut in Mattel's BARBIE IN THE NUTCRACKER, CGI animation company Mainframe Entertainment has been contracted to animate the second direct-to-video Barbie feature, BARBIE AS RAPUNZEL. Scheduled for a fall 2002 launch, BARBIE AS RAPUNZEL will feature the voices of Anjelica Huston as the evil stepmother, Cree Summer as Penelope the dragon and Kelly Sheridan reprising her role as Barbie. In this new adaptation of the classic fairytale, Barbie portrays an artist who paints her way out of the castle tower to save her beloved prince.