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AWN Headline News

Channel Headline News

VegasBuzzz.com Launches Anime News Channel

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 12:00am

Vegas Buzz (www.vegasbuzzz.com) has launched a new channel dedicated to Anime News. The channel will cover the gamut of anime, including manga. The new service will cover TV series and features that have kids as their core audience or adults only in mind. Vegas Buzz hopes to capitalize on the ever-growing arena, which has quietly become a billion dollar a year business. For more information, visit www.animevegas.blogspot.com/.

Games Headline News

Vivendi Universal Games Announces Ice Age 2 Game

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 12:00am

Vivendi Universal Games announced that a videogame is in development based on 20th Century Fox's upcoming family film, ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN.

The videogame will be available in stores spring 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance and PC. It will sell for $19.99 on PC, $29.99 for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance and $39.99 for consoles.

Show Headline News

Big Machine Titles X-Testers For The Learning Channel

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 12:00am

Big Machine Design (BMD) has produced a new main title opening sequence and show graphics package for the TV program X-TESTERS, which airs on The Learning Channel. For X-TESTERS, BMD produced a main title opening sequence combining graphics and live action. BMDs client for the program was Lee Toft, post supervisor at Mike Mathis Prods.

Brickyard Headline News

Brickyard VFX Expands Workload for Volkswagen Shorts

Brickyard VFX expanded its work for Volkswagen from visual effects to end-to-end creative direction with 14 short films to promo the 2006 Volkswagen (VW) Passat. VW and advertising agency Arnold Worldwide tapped Brickyard as one of a handful of production entities to conceive and produce the clever and artsy :15-second films, each of which focuses on one of the features of the new "beyond-loaded" Passat. The Volkswagen Passat Feature Films Project has been rolled out via www.vw.com and traditional broadcast media.

Animation Headline News

Jupiterimages Acquires Animation Factory

Jupitermedia Corp. announced that its Jupiterimages division has acquired the assets of Animation Factory Inc., which includes the MediaBuilder Network of websites, (www.animationfactory.com) and (www.mediabuilder.com), from VA Software Corp. for $9.35 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities.

Film Headline News

Toy Story Added to National Film Registry

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced his annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry. This group of titles brings the total number of films placed on the Registry to 425. This year the only animated title to make the list was Pixars TOY STORY.

Animation Headline News

AWN Discussion Forums - What's New? for December 27, 2005

This week in AWN's Forums, a member says he has no problems with Flash until Another thread wants to know what other members think of animators lack of animation knowledge. In line with the holidays, members are asking what holiday films are members favorites. Another thread is collecting what people got for Christmas. As well as, tools for teaching animation, the business of animation and, as always, brand new stuff to check out in show and tell!

Brand Headline News

Bill Burke New HIT Ent. Brand Management VP

Bill Burke joins HIT Ent. as vp, brand management, to oversee the brand development of HIT's premiere properties BARNEY and THE WIGGLES, as well as the portfolio of brands from The Jim Henson Co. that HIT acts as worldwide representative for, including FRAGGLE ROCK and ANIMAL JAM. Additionally, he will focus on brand management for new content development. Burke is based in the HIT's New York City office and reports to Jamie Cygielman, svp, consumer products.

Ratings Headline News

Naruto Marathon to Animate Cartoon Network's Toonami for New Years

Anime fans may want to celebrate this New Years watching a 17-episode marathon of NARUTO, on Cartoon Network's Toonami, starting Dec. 31, 2005, at 2:30 pm consecutive episodes of the popular Toonami anime series NARUTO. The eight-and-a-half-hour-marathon will conclude with the premiere of a never-before-seen episode at 10:30 pm.

NARUTO is an adaptation of the popular manga series, NARUTO, created by Masahi Kishimoto. Cartoon Network airs the anime series during Toonami, Cartoon Networks Saturday primetime action block.

Film Headline News

Iran Animation Film on Hafez in Works

Two Iranian animators are making an animation about the life of the great Persian poet, Hafez, inspired by the miniatures of the Timurid era, the Persian service CHN announced.

Vahid Nasirian and Saadat Rahimzadeh are working on the animation, which narrates the life of Hafez. In the film, Hafez falls in love with a woman, and his life is narrated from early youth to old age. There are no details, reports IRANMANIA, in this 20-minute animation, but it employs a number of his poems to narrate his biography and significant events throughout his life.

Disney Headline News

Choreographer/actress Debbie Allen Guest Stars on Higglytown Heroes Jan. 2

Emmy Award-winning choreographer/actress Debbie Allen guest stars on the hit series for preschoolers, HIGGLYTOWN HEROES, premiering Jan. 2, 2006, at 7:30 am during the learning-focused programming block Playhouse Disney on Disney Channel. Allen voices the role of the Dance Instructor, who teaches Eubie how to waltz just in time for his cousin's wedding.

Headline News

Maya, MotionBuilder for Beginners on DVD

People new to 3D animation and computer graphics now have two beginners' guides created by Alias to help them discover the creative and professional possibilities Maya 7 and Alias MotionBuilder can offer. THE MAYA 7 BEGINNER'S GUIDE BUNDLE and the ALIAS MOTIONBUILDER BEGINNER'S GUIDE are in DVD format and available online at www.alias.com/learningtools.

Season Headline News

Concrete Pictures Gets Rose Bowl Open

Kicking off January's highly anticipated Rose Bowl, ABC Sports has tapped Concrete Pictures to produce the open for the Bowl Championship Series' (BCS) National Championship game between University of Southern California and the University of Texas. The 1:40 spot, helmed by Tripp Dixon, will feature famed college football broadcaster Keith Jackson guiding fans through the thrilling tale of the 2005 college football season.

Games Headline News

Valve Unveils 64-Bit Source Game Engine

Valve released a 64-bit version of its Source game engine technology. The first 64-bit Valve games released will be native 64-bit versions of HALF-LIFE 2 and LOST COAST, and have been developed to take advantage of AMD Athlon 64 FX processor-based systems.

The 64-bit versions of these games are being offered to all HALF-LIFE 2 owners via Steam, Valve's online platform for delivering games and digital content directly to users around the world.

Team Headline News

A52 Adds Wintry Effects to 2006 Lexus IS Spot

For the newest ANY ROAD spot to promote the launch of the 2006 Lexus IS sport sedan, A52 was asked to "winterize" it from beginning to end.

"We have a long history of relying on A52 for complex visual feats," explained Jack Epsteen, exec producer with ad agency Team One, "and in this case, we felt that tapping into the company's artistic expertise to add snow effects to this spot would be an interesting way to back-up the 'Why live in one dimension' tagline. They met the challenge in their typical exemplary style."

Headline News

BOXX and ProMAX Team Up

ProMAX Systems Inc. and BOXX Technologies Inc. will jointly deliver a broad range of specialized media creation products for film, video and broadcast professionals.

BOXX's, is to rapidly make new performance technologies available to creative professionals to improve the efficiency of their workflow. ProMAX delivers stability, performance and high quality support in advanced integrated video systems.

Holiday Headline News

Kong Edges Narnia for Holiday Top Spot

Although Universals KING KONG has not yet turned into the holiday juggernaut that most industry observers predicted, it muscled its way past Buena Vistas THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE to retain its box office lead during the four-day holiday weekend ended Dec. 26, 2005.

Animation Headline News

Commercials, Ids & Music Video the Focus of New Acrobat AWM!

For the latest Acrobat version of ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE, which is now online, the theme focuses on commercials, ids and music videos. Rick DeMott for the third year collects the best in animated and visual effects commercials, Ids and music videos in Hot Spots III. John Cawley chronicles the rise of animated virtual band Gorilaz. Karen Raugust looks at how digital video recorders challenge the traditional TV spot, animated and live-action, but also create new advertising opportunities. Joe Strike ventures out to survey the music video scene to see whos animating memorable work.

Shows Headline News

January Sees New Shows on TELETOON

TELETOON has a host of new programming to kick off 2006.

Three kids' shows ATOMIC BETTY, FOSTER'S HOME FOR IMAGINARY FRIENDS and THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY will debut new episodes.

Here are some of the stories viewers tuning in to these shows can expect on ...

World Headline News

Shadowmation Technology Launches New Big Big World Series on PBS

PBS KIDS will launch a new preschool series, ITS A BIG BIG WORLD, featuring learning age-appropriate science and geography concepts from award-winning television veteran Mitchell Kriegman (BEAR IN THE BIG BLUE HOUSE, CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL) on Jan. 2, 2006 (check local listings). The series diverse group of characters and lush rainforest home are brought to life through Shadowmation, a unique, patented process combining puppetry, animatronics and computer-generated animation.

Million Headline News

The Sims Earns French Stamp of Approval

The French postal service, La Poste, has honored THE SIMS franchise with an official postage stamp. Published in limited edition of three million units, Les Sims is one of 10 stamps in the Heroes of Videogames collection featuring the industrys most beloved icons.

The set retails for 2.65 euros (approximately $3.09 USD) and is available now in French post offices and through La Poste's website at www.timbres.laposte.fr/eng.

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