Mary Kocol's MY FATHER'S STORY will be shown at several places in
Massachussetts during the next few weeks. October 22, 7 pm: Gallery NAGA at
67 Newbury Street, Boston. For more information Tel. (617) 267-9060.
November 7, 2 pm and November 10, 2 pm: Boston Jewish Film Festival at the
Coolidge Corner Theatre which is located at 90 Harvard Street, Brookline.
For more information Tel. (617) 734-2500. November 6, 5 pm: Northampton
Film Festival at the Academy of Music on Main Street, Northampton. For more

The 3rd Annual Digital Video (DV) Conference & Expo will highlight and
showcase the "Indie" film and video industries. The DV Expo merges the
worlds of broadcast video, Web video, 2D and 3D graphics, animation, sound,
and data. The event features a D. FILM DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL. The event
takes place Monday, October 18 - Friday, October 22 in Long Beach,
California, USA. For more information visit the Miller Freeman and CMP
websites at www.mfi.com and www.cmp.com.

Gil Zimmerman speaks about Digital and Traditional Animation in TARZAN.
Zimmerman, currently Model Development Supervisor on TREASURE PLANET, was
hired by Disney to be the liaison between traditional animators and digital
artists on TARZAN. Cost: $10. To make reservations Tel. (323) 466-6663. The
event takes place at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd
on Thursday, October 14, 7 pm in Hollywood, California, USA.

Nickelodeon hosts a screening of new animated student films made at the
University of Southern California. The screening takes place on Wednesday,
October 13, 6:30 pm at the Directors Guild of America at 7920 Sunset Blvd.
in . Los Angeles, California, USA. For more information Tel. (213)
740-2804.

North Hollywood-based Film Roman's Board of Directors has decided that
DAVID PRITCHARD will no longer be president and CEO of FILM ROMAN. The
company is not yet ready to provide details on the circumstances of
Pritchard's leaving. Chief operating officer BILL SHPALL and senior vice
president JON VEIN will take over Pritchard's responsibilities until a new
president is named. David Pritchard was named President and CEO of Film
Roman in August 1997. Pritchard had been CEO and partner of

Last week we announced that the THE IRON GIANT laser disc release will have
a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, whereas the film was released with a 2.35:1. In
addition, when we announced the DVD and VHS releases three weeks ago, we
neglected to mention that the DVD, as well as the widescreen VHS release,
will also be 1.85:1. It's unfortunate that none of these will be 2.35:1
because Brad Bird designed THE IRON GIANT partly in homage to the
CinemaScope films of the 1950s, and he even wanted to include "CinemaScope"

Santa Monica, California-based SIMEX DIGITAL STUDIOS has completed the
computer animation for "Glitch," a spot for Repairnow.com, an Internet
resource site. West Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues produced the spot for
ad agency Millenium Communications, and Richard Taylor directed it. The
spot depicts the impact of a mini whirlwind of destruction, which is named
"Glitch," as it passes through VCRs, CD players, and other household items.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based A.FILM has completed "Jumbo Book," a :30 for
Disney Scandinavia. The spot touts JUMBO, a collection of Donald Duck
comics. The spot mixes 2D animation and live-action. In the spot, a
live-action maid stumbles across all sorts of 2D animated figures including
Donald Duck's beak, Uncle Scrooge's hat, etc. The figures tease and provoke
the maid into opening a closet from which spill hundreds of Donald Duck
comic books, burying the maid. Live-action was directed by Michael Hegner
and animation was directed by Craig Frank.

Boris FX, the makers of compositing and effects plug-ins for filmmakers,
recently made several key announcements, including the introduction of two
new products. Boris Graffiti, a new 3D title animation tool will ship
before the end of 1999 at just under $1000. The program will be available
in the form of a plug-in for non-linear editing programs, and will allow
users to create and extrude 3D text, and rotate it in 3D space with lights,
motion blur and animated kerning. Also, Boris Factory, a new 3D DVE

Buena Vista's supernatural thriller THE SIXTH SENSE, with visual effects by DreamQuest,
finished sixth at the US weekend boxoffice, grossing $6,123,967 for a total
of $242,710,195. Other animation-related films in the top 40 include: The
Walt Disney Company's INSPECTOR GADGET, with digital effects by DreamQuest,
finished 15th with $566,409 for a total of $94,888,759; Lucasfilm's STAR
WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE finished 16th with $538,206 for a total
of $426,141,814; DreamWorks SKG's THE HAUNTING, with digital effects by

New Line Cinema's THE LORD OF THE RINGS film trilogy, based on the classic fantasy trilogy by J.
R. R. Tolkien, began principal photography in Wellington, New Zealand, on
October 11, 1999. Peter Jackson (DEAD ALIVE aka BRAIN DEAD, MEET THE
FEEBLES, HEAVENLY CREATURES) is directing from his own script. The three
films that will make up the trilogy - THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO
TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING - are being filmed at the same time, a
tactic that worked for the first two SUPERMAN films with Christopher Reeve.

Whoever wants to know how the cliffhanger ending of the October 15, 1999 episode of SPACE GHOST:
COAST TO COAST is resolved will have to win the auction that the Cartoon
Network is holding Friday, October 15 to Monday, October 18. Cartoon
Network is auctioning off the last page of that episode's script, which
will not be part of the broadcast episode, to benefit Clowns Without
Borders. The auction will be held at www.ebay.com. At the end of Friday's
episode, which guest stars comedian Steve Wright, Space Ghost and cast find

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of Comedy Central's SOUTH PARK, have received permission to
sample copyrighted Monty Python work for use in IT'S THE MONTY PYTHON
STORY. The animated special will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BBC
comedy series MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, which was created by Graham
Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry
Gilliam (the lone American in the group, who did the animation). The
special will include a spoof of the famous "Dead Parrot Sketch" entitled

Seattle, Washington-based Honkworm International has secured a content development,
production, and distribution agreement with web animator, Camp Chaos, the
first such alliance Honkworm has completed. "We are excited to work even
closer with Camp Chaos and broaden our already existing relationship," says
Honkworm COO, Dan Pepper. "As we ramp up production, we're continuing to
look for more partners like this to add to our portfolio." The
co-production structure with Camp Chaos will likely be repeated in future

The fourth edition of The Animated Castles film festival took place September 29 - October 3 in Rome,
Italy. Here are this year's winners:


Grand Prize "I Castelli Animati":

AU BOUT DU MONDE by Konstantin Bronzit, Russia.


Special Jury Prize:

EUROPE & ITALY by Bruno Bozzetto, Italy.


Prize For The Best Debut Short Film:

MIGRATIONS by Constantin Chamski, France.


Prize For The Best European Short Film:

3 MISSES by Paul Driessen, Netherlands.


Special Audience Prize:

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominees for the 4th Annual
BAFTA Children's Awards. The Awards "honour the variety, richness and
excellence of British television for the young audience." This year's
Animation category nominees are: THE BEAR (Channel 4/TV Cartoons Ltd.),
BYBS (S4C/Griffilms), THE FIRST SNOW OF WINTER (BBC1/Hibbert Ralph
Entertainment), and SPOT (BBC1/King Rollo Films). Additionally, two of the
four nominees for the Children's Feature Film are animated: A BUG'S LIFE

AWN is extremely pleased to present the works of Raoul Servais in "Raoul
Servais, A Painter-Filmmaker's Journey."

Bill Plympton has updated his appearances page. This month, his films will
be appearing in various festivals and other events in the US, UK, France,
Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Taiwan. "I Married A Strange Person"
will have its U.S. cable premiere on Cinemax on October 22, 1999. Bill
will also be attending some of the events in the US, Italy and Germany.


Check out Bill's appearance schedule.

This week starts a new series of comics for ADULTS ONLY, extracted from the
comic book, "Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton"...

This week's AWN Animation Trivia Quiz features questions about Hanna-Barbera...