Screenwriting Expo 4 Screenplay CompetitionWorld Wide WebNovember 13, 2005Deadline: August 22, 2005
The Screenwriting Expo 4 Screenplay Competition is giving away $80,000 in cash and prizes. The Expo 3 Screenplay Competition is supported by the Writers Guild of America, west.
ATOMIC BETTY producer Breakthrough Animation, through its representative Joy Tashjian Marketing Group Llc. (JTMG), has added Hallmark Cards Inc. as the newest licensee for its Cartoon Network animated series. Hallmark has licensed ATOMIC BETTY for product categories encompassing party goods, party decorations, gift wrap, greeting cards and Christmas ornaments.
Shane Acker from University of California, Los Angeles won the Gold Medal for his film, 9, in the animation category in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 32nd Annual Student Academy Awards competition June 12, 2005. He was among 12 winning film students that participated in several days of industry-related activities and social events prior to the awards presentation ceremony at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Kids WB! has ordered 26 episodes of the anime/action/comedy series, VIEWTIFUL JOE, from Geneon Entertainment, which will air during the 2005-2006 broadcast season on Saturday mornings. VIEWTIFUL JOE is one of Japans hottest television series
Helen McAleer has been promoted from director to the new role of deputy managing director of Children's BBC Worldwide and Susanna Pollack, director of U.S. co-production sales, has been promoted to vp of children's business development.
Reporting to Mark Young, managing director, Children's BBC Worldwide, Helen McAleer will be responsible for the global exploitation of children's brands through acquisition, investment, development and license of intellectual properties.
Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) has acquired independent game developer Swordfish Studios. Under terms of the agreement, VU Games will retain Swordfish Studios' team of 45 development professionals, leaving the studio basically intact in its current office in Birmingham, England. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Fire/Inferno artist O.T. Hight and colorist Randy Beveridge, both from episodic TV, have joined Level 3 Post. Hight and Beveridge will handle post work for the ABC series GREYS ANATOMY as well as other episodics and long-form TV projects. Both will also be involved in remastering work.
O.T. and Randy are very capable artists who have broad experience at the highest level of the television industry, said Level 3 Post managing director Darrell Anderson. We plan to take full advantage of their talents.
SIGGRAPH 2005 Special Sessions offer a unique glimpse into the past, present and future of digital technologies, with experts providing insights into the current state of computer graphics and interactive techniques.
SIGGRAPH 2005, the 32nd International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, will take place July 31-Aug. 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Walt Disney Pictures and Spyglass Ent. are currently not fearing the potential for a possibly transforming the classic TV cartoon UNDERDOG into a live-action franchise, reports VARIETY. Spyglass' Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman are producers on the project, along with Jay Polstein (FRIDA), who initiated the deal. Spyglass optioned the rights from Classic Media three years ago with a preemptive bid of mid-six figures against north of $2 million.
ANIMA 2006Brussels, BelgiumFebruary 24 - March 5, 2006Deadline: June 30, 2005
BUFFY star Sarah Michelle Gellar and director Marcus Nispel (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake) have signed on for the film adaptation of American McGees videogame ALICE for Universal Pictures, reports VARIETY. Collision Ent. originally secured the rights to the game, which then when to joint venture partner Dimension after their partnership was ended. Dimension shopped the project, which landed at Universal. Electronic Arts is the publisher of the game.
Warren Franklin joins Rainmaker LP as president of Animation & Visual Effects. He will be responsible for expanding the award-winning television effects team, to continue Rainmaker LP's growth in vfx for feature film and in building a feature animation studio to handle production of computer-generated animated films.
EVERYDAY HEROES, a recent :60 Budweiser spot from Waylon Ad in St. Louis, marked the first time that A52 has used Massive, the AI-driven animation system from Massive Software that is currently in V. 2.0.
Back in April, Anheuser-Busch announced its Heres to the Heroes cross-country tour, sending an eight-horse Clydesdale team from New York and a second from San Francisco, each accompanied by its own mobile television studio, to major cities along the routes to St. Louis, where both teams will meet on July 3.
Alias announced the launch of Alias SketchBook Pro 2, the latest version of its award-winning paint and drawing software application. Recognized for its ability to turn a digitized pen tablet or Tablet PC into an intuitive, mobile sketchbook, this release takes SketchBook Pro software to a broader audience of users, appealing to a growing number of creative professionals looking to add to their digital toolset.
IMAX saw its biggest five-day opening ever with last weekends estimated $3.16M debut of BATMAN BEGINS: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE. The opening day gross of approximately $754,000 proved to be an IMAX record as well for a Hollywood simultaneous release.
BATMAN BEGINS posted strong if not super debut numbers for Warner Bros., grabbing $48.7M for the weekend ended June 19, 2005, and $72.8M overall for its first five days. Also impressive was the record-breaking $3.1M from IMAX. Vfx from Double Negative, MPC, Rising Sun Pictures and BUF certainly contributed to the visual success of Chris Nolans back to basics approach. Meanwhile, overseas, BATMAN BEGINS took in a good if not spectacular $41.7M on 8,000 screens, and was actually outperformed by MADAGASCAR in Australia, Spain and the Netherlands.
Entertainment Rights Plc. (ER), one of the UKs fastest-growing independent media groups specialising in the ownership of childrens and family programming, characters and brands, has appointed MTV vet Kathleen Hricik to the newly-created post of evp/md of the United States of America, Canada and Latin America.
TOM Online, a leading wireless Internet company in China, will be the sole wireless and the premier Internet distribution partner for Warner Bros. Online (WBOL) in China.
TOM Online Inc. and WBOL formed a strategic partnership that includes the launch of the first official Warner Bros. Studios site in China, (http://ent.tom.com/warnerbros.html). Part of the popular TOM Online portal, www.tom.com, the site is the first to deliver official studio content to Chinese fans via the Internet and wireless platforms.
Anchor Bay Ent. announced its entrance into the Universal Media Disc (UMD) marketplace with six popular films. On Aug. 23, 2005, the company will release HALLOWEEN, EVIL DEAD, TIME BANDITS, as well as Manga Ent.s GHOST IN THE SHELL, BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE and NINJA SCROLL on UMD. Each film will cost $19.98.
Joy Tashjian Marketing Group (JTMG) has been named licensing representative by Toei Animation Inc. for its new animated series BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO, an anime series that will make its U.S. debut this October on the Cartoon Network Toonami block.
Comic book publisher Bruce Hamilton passed away on June 20, 2005, following a prolonged illness. In 1981, Hamilton, along with Russ Cochran, two long-time Disney comics fans, decided to combine forces to bring greater recognition to the work of one of the greats of comic art Carl Barks, creator of the popular Disney comic book character, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, miserly-yet-adventurous uncle of Donald Duck.
NBC Universal will present an unprecedented motion picture preview as all nine of its networks simultaneously telecast the world premiere of the first trailer for Universal Pictures' KING KONG, on Monday, June 27, 2005, from 8:59:30-9:02 pm ET.
MTV Networks has acquired NeoPets Inc. the owner and operator of Neopets.com, the world's largest and fastest growing youth community on the Internet. Neopets is a global online entertainment network whose members create and care for "virtual pets" that inhabit a mythical land called "Neopia." To date, more than 25 million members worldwide have created Neopets accounts in 10 different languages, generating more than five billion pageviews per month. Both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix consistently rank Neopets.com as one of the top-10 "stickiest" sites on the Web.
To honor the artistry of director George Lucas, AFI's 33rd Life Achievement Award recipient, AFI Silver Theatre will present a special tribute to George Lucas hosted by the Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore, Her Excellency Chan Heng Chee, on June 29, 2005, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Issues about remarriage are sweetly addressed in a special primetime episode of Playhouse Disney's hit series for preschoolers, JOJO'S CIRCUS premiering June 20, 2005, at 7:30 pm on the Disney Channel. Erik Estrada is the voice of groom-to-be, Mr. Muscles, and sings an original song with lyrics written by Kathie Lee Gifford in this stop-motion episode A Circus Town Wedding.
