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AWN Headline News

Headline News

Musical Guests Grace Cartoon Network Fridays Set for Summer ’06

The set of Cartoon Network Fridays will heat up this summer with performances by some of todays most popular musical guests. R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo will kick off the Memorial Day weekend with a performance of his hit single So Sick, on Friday, May 26, at 8:00 pm (ET, PT). Also slated to appear this summer are Cheyenne Kimball, Sammie, Bowling for Soup and Da Backwudz. Musical guests perform on the set of Fridays in front of a live studio audience. Past musical guests include Nick Cannon, Chris Brown and Rihanna.

Animation Headline News

Crew972 Gets Animated for FIFA World Cup Tour

With the 2006 World Cup just around the corner, 150,000 soccer fans in 28 countries have taken advantage of the rare opportunity to see the original World Cup trophy up close as part of the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour. As part of the unique experience, the FIFA World Cup Tour commissioned Ramat Gan, Israel-based character animation firm, Crew972, to produce an introductory 3D animated film.

Headline News

YTV Celebrates End of School Year with Garfield & Superheroes

YTV has announced the highlights for its June lineup.

To celebrate the release of Garfields second big screen adventure, GARFIELD: A TAIL OF TWO KITTIES, YTV will air four GARFIELD specials everyday from Monday, June 19 to Thursday, June, 22 at 7:00 pm. Specials include: GARFIELD GETS A LIFE, GARFIELD AND HIS NINE LIVES, GARFIELD IN PARADISE and GARFIELD GOES TO HOLLYWOOD.

Digital Headline News

Digital Musings From the Editor:

THE DA VINCI CODE offers another prime example of innovative invisible effects, and Tara DiLullo details the fine work of Rainmakers new London facility and MPC. Per Holmes describes why storyboarding is an outmoded shot-planning tool for 3D in The Digital Eye. Alain Bielik gets a sneak peek at how Mainframe altered its design process to accomplish more realistic MoCap in the upcoming TONY HAWK IN BOOM BOOM SABOTAGE DVD.

Studio Headline News

AtomFilms Debuts Four Original Shorts on Net & Mobile Phones

Atom Ent. Inc. announced that four new short films developed by AtomFilms Studio are premiering simultaneously May 24, 2006, on the AtomFilms website (www.atomfilms.com) and on mobile phones. Ranging in length from one to five minutes apiece, the new shorts provide unique comic perspectives on dating, classic videogames, canine friendships and even breast enhancements.

Headline News

Breakthrough Ent. Via HOLA Ent. Present Big Slate at L.A. Screenings 2006

Breakthrough Ent. Inc., the distribution division of Canadian production company, Breakthrough Films & Television, unveils its most prolific slate of all-new series and eagerly anticipated made-for-TV movies at the L.A. Screenings 2006, which runs through may 25, 2006. HOLA Ent., Breakthrough Ent.s agent for Latin America, will be offering the following programming slate to Latin American buyers:

Version Headline News

REALVIZ VTour Introductory Offer Extended

REALVIZ announced that a new patch up-date is now available for VTour. Version 1.0.1 of VTour includes a number of significant additions, including the improved capability to create Web-compatible projects, as well as an updated SPi-V3d viewer. The Patch is available free of charge to all existing VTour owners. New users may also purchase this latest version until May 31 at the reduced price of 300 /$340 (normal list price 499 /$580).

Headline News

Gnomon Announces Summer Session

Registration for summer term 2006 at Gnomon School of Visual Effects (June 26-Sept. 10) began May 22. There are two new classes for summer: Visual Math for Artists, taught by Saty Raghavachary, is visual intro to mathematical topics that are useful in CG production, and is meant for a non-programmer/non-technical audience. In Vehicles and Hardware Design for Film and Games, students learn the basic design principles necessary to work as conceptual artists in the science fiction genre. This five-week class is taught by Hugo Martin.

Headline News

Panel Set For WIA’s “How to Get a Job in CG” Event

WIA Los Angeles has announced the panel for its How to Get a Job in CG and What Do you Need to Know? event, taking place Thursday, May 25, 2006, at Klasky/Csupo/LA Film.

Topics include: * What is the one piece of advice you would give someone applying to your company?* Do I need to know some computer animation software before I come to you or will you train a traditional 2D animator with only classical training?* If I need to know 3D software, which packages should I learn?* What do you look for in a demo reel?

Headline News

The Weinstein Co. Builds a Dragon Dynasty

Bob and Harvey Weinstein have announced the unveiling of Dragon Dynasty, the new label under which all The Weinstein Co.'s Asian titles will be released, including ONG BAK 2, THE PROTECTOR (aka TOM YUM GOONG), BORN TO FIGHT, SPL, SEVEN SWORDS and DRAGON SQUAD, as well as a package of high profile titles, which was licensed from Fortune Star Ent. the distribution division of News Corp.'s STAR Group which owns the world's largest contemporary Chinese language feature film library.

Game Headline News

MK2, Onyx Films Join Forces on New Game Firm

French independent film group MK2 has joined forces with animation studio Onyx Films to form a videogame publishing joint venture, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The 50-50 venture, MKO Games, will develop and publish high-end, cross-platform games for PC, consoles and mobile devices.

"The idea is to bring together the movie industry and the game industry in France, which have until now just been eyeing each other up," said Nathanael Karmitz, who recently took over MK2 from his father and company founder Marin Karmitz.

Films Headline News

Harryhausen Presents Mindfire Productions

Ray Harryhausen will team with Mindfire Ent. on a series of new movies, telefilms, videogames and merchandising under the "Ray Harryhausen Presents" moniker, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The projects will be based on Harryhausens unproduced works.

Several scripts are already in development one set in Greek mythology and the other an alien invasion tale. The first film is set to start production in the fall.

Disney Headline News

Russell Hampton New President, Disney Publishing Worldwide

R. Russell Hampton, Jr. has been named President, Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW), responsible for overseeing DPW's various book imprints and magazines around the world. He replaces Deborah Dugan who announced her resignation earlier this week. He will be based in New York City and report to Andy Mooney, chairman, Disney Consumer Products.

Headline News

Rendercore Launches Mac OSX Support for LightWave 8.5

Rendercore Inc. announced the complete integration and support for Mac OSX version of LightWave 8.5 from NewTek.

"With prevalence of Mac OSX as an important part of creating photo-real imagery in the computer graphics industry, we worked diligently to include the LightWave Mac OSX version shortly after its introduction," said Brian Kim, technical director for Rendercore.

Framestore Headline News

Framestore Heads For the Clouds in New British Airways Spot

Framestore CFC created the ethereal and lovely vfx for CLOUDS, a new spot for British Airways. Made by Ed Edwards and Dave Masterman at BBH, and directed by Daniel Kleinman for Kleinman Prods., the spot is currently appearing in :30 and :40 versions in markets that include the U.K., the Middle East and Africa.

Series Headline News

BOXX Launches 3DBOXX 8300 Series Workstation

BOXX Technologies Inc. announced the new 3DBOXX 8300 Performance Series workstation. The 3DBOXX 8300 is a high-performance personal workstation, which leverages the power of the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 Series processors running in conjunction with the new Intel 5000X chipset. With new performance features, such as a 1333MHz front side bus, 4MB of cache shared between two cores, FB-DIMMs (a cutting-edge memory technology) and powerful I/O, the new 3DBOXX 8300 Series workstation provides enhanced workflow for todays VFX professionals.

Studios Headline News

Zoic Helps Tropicana Campaign Make A Splash

The new campaign for Tropicana plunges viewers into the brand's intensely juicy and delicious experience courtesy of a unique collaboration between agency Element 79 Partners, Order's Robert Bryant and Zoic Studios. Capturing the feeling of an orange unfolding and exploding with a cascade of dancing juice is at the heart of this visually refreshing spot duo.

Headline News

Da Vinci Script Writer To Adapt Dan Brown's Angels & Demons

Sony sees a sequel for worldwide hit, THE DA VINCI CODE, in Dan Browns first religious thriller, ANGELS & DEMONS, hiring Akiva Goldsman to adapt, reports VARIETY. DA VINCI made $231.8 million worldwide in its first five days.

The studio hopes to bring DA VINCI producing team of Brian Grazer and John Calley onto the project. Though no deals have been set, director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks will have a first look at the new film.

Film Headline News

Sony Pictures Classics Snatches Persepolis Rights

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the North American rights to PERSEPOLIS, an animated feature based on Iranian author Marjane Satrapi's autobiolgraphical graphic novels, reports VARIETY. Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud co-wrote and are co-directing the film, which is being co-produced by 2.4.7. Films and France 3 Cinema.

2.4.7. Films Marc-Antoine Robert and Xavier Rigault are producing with Kathleen Kennedy (MUNICH, WAR OF THE WORLDS) exec producing.

Game Headline News

GameSpot Announces Winners of E3 2006 Editors' Choice Awards

GameSpot announced the winners of its 10th Annual GameSpot E3 2006 Editors' Choice Awards. In addition to "Game of the Show" winner, BIOSHOCK, shown for the Xbox 360 and coming to other platforms, more than 25 category awards went to the most impressive and anticipated games out of the 1,000-plus titles that were on display at E3.

Headline News

Animation Producer Edward Herskovitz Dies

Veteran animation producer Edward Herskovitz died May 22, 2006, at his home in Rishon Le'Zion, Israel. He was 85.

Herskovitz worked as an animation producer in Japan during the 1970s. He was one of the founding members of ASIFA-Japan. He collaborated on many international co-productions, making France his second home.

He was born in Egypt in 1921, after his parents moved there when WWI reached what later became Israel. He joined a traveling circus in his youth, eventually settling down in Japan. After a stroke, he moved to Israel.

Festival Headline News

Barcelona Int’l TV Fest Wants Films for Kids

10th edition of Barcelona International Television Festival (FITB)Barcelona, SpainNovember 14-16, 2006Deadline: May 31, 2006

Barcelona International Television Festival is a three-day screening for children and young people from around the world divided into documentaries, animation, TV programs and series. For more information, check out www.oeti.org.

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