Toonz Animation India, a new animation production studio and full-service
facility, will host "A Week with the Masters," which will bring the top
names in international animation pre-production together to discuss the
importance of story boarding, character design, and story development.
Among the guests will be keynote speaker Rob Coleman, Industrial Light &
Magic's Animation Supervisor on STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE;
producer-director-writer Derek Lamb; Ian Diamond of Cartoon Network;

The Harvey Entertainment Company, which owns the rights to such characters
as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich, has announced an agreement
with Spumco Inc. (the company founded in 1989 by John Kricfalusi to make
THE REN & STIMPY SHOW for Nickelodeon) to produce cartoons created
specifically for the Internet based upon classic Harvey characters. The
cartoons will run from two to seven minutes in length utilizing new
storylines written for Harvey characters such as Spooky, Little Audrey,

Lucasfilm's STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE took in $16.5 million
last weekend (October 15 - 17), bringing its overseas gross to US$428
million, surpassing its domestic gross of US$426.8 million. The film opened
in France with US$11.02 million, the best ever opening in France for a US
film.

The Goethe-Institut is presenting a program featuring nine new animated
short films from Germany. In conjunction with this screening Academy
Award-winning visual effects specialist, Volker Engel, will be speaking.
The German-born animator will comment on the film selections and discuss
animation and special effects in general. Engel's credits include visual
effects work on GODZILLA and INDEPENDENCE DAY, for which he won the Oscar.
Films from Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Heinrich Sabl, Thomas Stellmach, Tyron

Work, in the form of original concept drawings, as well as 18 seconds of animation, done by Salvador Dali
in 1946 at the Disney studio for a never-completed film called DESTINO, is
being dusted off by Disney vice chairman Roy Disney (Junior) and will be
completed as an art house cartoon by the Disney studio, according to the
London SUNDAY TIMES. "I am going to finish the work of Salvador Dali,"
Disney told the newspaper. "At Disney, we need to recover our history." The
production will be supervised by Disney, who is a son of Roy Disney (Walt

The Ottawa International Student Animation Festival (SAFO) announced the grand prize winners in this year's
competition on Sunday, October 24, 1999. The festival stated that, "This
year's winners show the high quality of work coming out of schools, both
locally, nationally, and internationally."


The winners in the various competitions are as follows as reported by the
festival:


Grand Prix: Best Film In Competition -- GRACE, Lorelei Pepi, USA


Grand Prix: Best School In Competition -- Royal College of Art, England

The WB has already removed its new primetime animated
series MISSION HILL from its Friday night line-up due to poor ratings. (Its
premiere episode finished 115th in the ratings for the week of October 4 -
10.) It's expected to return as a midseason replacement. New episodes of SOUTH
PARK return beginning next Wednesday, October 27 at 10 pm on COMEDY
CENTRAL, with an all-new Halloween special, KORN'S GROOVY PIRATE GHOST
MYSTERY, guest starring the band, KORN. . . MTV is developing an animated

WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION has promoted BOB BACON to the position of
vice president of finance. Bacon will oversee production finance for all of
Feature Animation, including both traditional and CGI-based projects at
Disney's Burbank, Orlando and Paris animation studios. Most recently, Bacon
served as Feature Animation's director of production finance.

DISNEY PUBLISHING WORLDWIDE has made several appointments. GUIDO
MASTROPAOLO has been named Director of Global Planning and Business
Development for Disney Publishing Worldwide. Located in Paris,
Mastropaolo's duties will include leading international initiatives to grow
revenue by negotiating acquisitions, new business ventures and major
licensing deals in order to ensure meeting overall publishing financial
goals. In addition, he will co-manage the strategic planning process and

Destination Films' newly released horror film, BATS, with visual effects by
North Hollywood, California-based Netter Digital Entertainment, Inc.,
finished seventh at the US weekend boxoffice, grossing an estimated $4.7
million. Buena Vista's supernatural thriller THE SIXTH SENSE, with visual
effects by DreamQuest, finished ninth, grossing $4.3 million for a total of
$255.7 million.

Several weeks ago (Animation Flash 9/28/99) Oxygen Media, Geraldine Laybourne's company founded to
provide content for women, announced its online production team. Now Oxygen
Media has named seven executive producers for its original cable television
line-up. CARSEY WERNER MANDABACH will oversee seven hours of original
programming each day on the 24-hour-a-day, 7 day-a-week cable network. The
new appointments are: LINDA CORRADINA (former Senior Vice President,
Programming and Production, VH1) will join Giselle Benetar as Executive

MORE, the stop-motion animated short film in IMAX format that is nominated
for an ANNIE, is being shown for free as part of the BIG SHORTS FILM
FESTIVAL Tuesday night, October 26, at 8 pm. The event is presented by The
Splinter Group, and highlights include: MORE (Mark Osborne's Academy
Award-nominated stop-motion short, CASTRATE BOAR PIGS FOR BETTER SALES,
PRIMITI TOO TAA (an animated sound poem), FIRE, and more. Admission is
free, and the program will last about one hour. The event takes place at

Copenhagen, Denmark-based A.FILM has finished a :40 spot for Daloon Spring
Rolls, Denmark's largest Chinese frozen food manufacturer. In the spot,
which unveils a new product called Funsters, a dragon, called "daloon" in
Danish, presents the product like a wise and distinguished old man, but the
children's crazy antics off-screen cause him to lose his cool. The CGI spot
was animated using 3D Studio Max with a few live-action props. Craig Frank
directed. The word from Denmark is that after the spot aired for three
weeks, the product sold out.

Hollywood, California-based ACME FILMWORKS has completed two :30 spots. In
"The Challenge," a live-action commercial for commemorative Pepsi cans that
promote the return of the Cleveland Browns to competition, images of
football plays appear in the stormy sky above Cleveland Browns player Chris
Spielman who asks the viewer, "So are you ready to be a Browns fan?" The
visual effects were composed, layered and rendered using Adobe Photoshop
and After Effects. Scott Ingalls directed the spot for Dallas, Texas-based

WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION has named JEFFREY FARNATH to the post of
senior vice president of business development and finance for Walt Disney
Feature Animation and Walt Disney Theatrical Productions. In addition to
supervising all areas of business development and finance, Farnath will
negotiate and manage international licenses for Disney's stage-show
business, oversee long-term strategic planning for Disney's animation
production units and develop growth strategies for theatrical productions

FOX FILMED ENTERTAINMENT has named STEVEN BERSCH President of FOX
INTERACTIVE, the studio's entertainment and sports computer and video game
software unit. Bersch succeeds Fox Interactive's current President, Jon
Richmond, who was recently named President of New Digital Media at Fox. In
his new position, Bersch will be directly responsible for driving all
aspects of the business including the development and production of the
division's interactive entertainment and sports games, as well as

Fox has removed FAMILY GUY from its Thursday night line-up due to poor
ratings. (Apparently UPN's new WWF SMACKDOWN! is creating stiff
competition.) According to a Fox spokesperson, the network remains
committed to the show, and its return date will be known in about two
weeks. The show did well last spring when it launched in a Sunday night
timeslot and Fox committed to another season. Therefore, it seems likely
the show will return as part of the Sunday night lineup when one of the

AWN is proud to host the first, official 27th Annual Annie Awards Showcase
on the Internet, in conjunction with ASIFA-Hollywood, The International
Animated Film Society...

Two new lessons from noted animator and educator Larry Lauria are now on-line...

This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes the Cartoons On The
Bay International Festival of Television Animation in Italy, the 5th Annual
Communicator Awards Video Competition in the US, as well as a Screening and
Exhibition on New German Animation in Los Angeles, USA. The Calendar of
Upcoming Events is a constantly changing reference source for what's
happening around the World of Animation. Use it to stay abreast of
animation related activities across the globe. If you know of animation