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Festival Headline News

JibJab Creates Branded Trailers for 2005 Sundance Film Festival

JibJab Media, the company whose election parodies were viewed online more than 80 million times during the 2004 election, has produced three new animated trailers, now screening at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah.

The 30- to 40-second long shorts are screening before every movie at the festival and feature absurd characters tossing off the shackles of "The Man" and striking out on their own. A LINE PAINTER, DOG CATCHER and DEMOLITION EXPERT find out just how dangerous it can be when you're "Independent."

Series Headline News

3D Pet Aliens Let Loose on Cartoon Network Jan. 23

Cartoon Network, which until now has been a bit alien to 3D-animated series, started airing PET ALIEN on Jan. 23, 2005, at 10:00 am. The new series follows the adventures of aliens who leave outer space and land in the seaside town of DeSpray Bay to experience Earth life firsthand.

Animation Headline News

Cartoon Network Rolls Out D.I.C.E. Jan. 22

Cartoon Network presented the U.S. television debut of D.I.C.E. on Jan. 22, 2005 at 7:30 pm. The anime series was created by Bandai Ent. and animated by renowned animation studio, Xebec (subsidiary of Production I.G.), and showcases cutting-edge CG/cel animation for TV animation from Japan.

Friends Headline News

McCracken’s Imaginary Friends Starts New Season

Craig McCrackens latest 2D creation, FOSTERS HOME FOR IMAGINARY FRIENDS, is back with a new season beginning Jan. 21, 2005 at 7:00 pm on Cartoon Network. The second season continues the adventures of Mac, a normal 8-year-old, and Blooregard Q. Kazoo, his imaginary friend.

Headline News

Zemeckis, Gaiman, Avary Get Medieval with Beowulf

Director Robert Zemeckis will team up with PULP FICTION producer Roger Avary and comic legend Neil Gaiman to bring the old English poem, BEOWULF to the big screen. The film will utilize performance capture technology like Zemeckis used on POLAR EXPRESS. Zemeckis will direct the film from a script by Avary and Gaiman with Steve Bingís Shangri-La Ent. producing. Shangri-La is in negotiations with Sony Pictures Ent. to distribute all its films. Producers will include Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke.

Headline News

Ghost Rider Gets Its Blackheart

Columbia Pictures has announced that Wes Bentley (AMERICAN BEAUTY) has been cast as Blackheart in the upcoming GHOST RIDER feature, reports VARIETY. DAREDEVIL helmer Mark Steven Johnson will direct the film based on the Marvel comic, which chronicles the adventures of stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) who pacts with Mephistopheles to save his true loveís life. Blackheart is Mephistopheles's son as well as chief nemesis. Michael De Luca, Avi Arad, Gary Foster and Ari Arad are producing. Shane Salerno wrote the script with rewrites by Johnson and David S. Goyer.

Destination Headline News

Wong Embarks On Final Destination 3

New Line Cinema has secured the directing serves of James Wong for FINAL DESTINATION 3, reports PRODUCTION WEEKLY. Wong helmed the original film, which he co-wrote with Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick. Based on a script by Wong and Morgan, the third installment follows high school students Wendy Christensen and Kevin Fischer as they try and stop Death from killing off the survivors of a roller coaster accident. FINAL DESTINATION 2 was directed by David R. Ellis and written by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress.

Headline News

Fox Gains Darkness Book Rights

Fox 2000 has bought the film rights to U.K. author Michelle Paver's six-part children's fantasy book series CHRONICLES OF DARKNESS for Fox-based Scott Free Prods., reports VARIETY. Ridley Scott and Erin Upson are set to produce. Paver reportedly received $250,000 against $1 million for the first book, WOLF BROTHER, and is negotiating option fees for the five additional books. U.S. book rights holder HarperCollins Children's Books will release the first book in the States Feb. 15, 2005. The first book was a best seller for publishing house Orion in the U.K.

Headline News

IDT Ent. Sales Signs Distribution Agreement With Ledafilms

IDT Ent. Sales (IDTeS) announced that Ledafilms S.A. has acquired all television broadcasting rights throughout Latin America for select IDTeS animated and live-action properties. The distribution agreement covers 34 Latin American countries and Spanish speaking regions, including Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil.

Headline News

BOXX Introduces New Workstations AMD Athlon 64 Processors

BOXX Technologies is now offering the BOXX 3200 workstation based on the AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 processors, the NVIDIA nForce 4 chipset, dual PCIe x16 SLI capable slots, 3Gb/s SATA and expandable internal storage to 4TB. The BOXX 3200 workstation is the first in a series of high-performance workstations.

Headline News

Digital-Tutors Releases Modified Street Racer Add-On

Digital-Tutors is now offering Modified Street Racer, the latest release in a collection of modifications and add-ons for existing training kits for digital artists. MODIFIED STREET RACER, the first high performance add-on for MAYA INTERMEDIATE: PHOTOREALISTIC CAR MODELING, takes car modification to another level. In more than 2.5 hours of comprehensive training, users can take existing car models from ordinary to extraordinary.

Effects Headline News

Houdini Once Again Dominates Oscar VFX Bakeoff

Reels for THE AVIATOR, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, I, ROBOT and SPIDER-MAN 2 showcased Houdini 3D software at Wednesdays Bakeoff, the competition for Oscar nomination bids among seven contenders held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Effects Headline News

Visual Effects Artist Aron Baxter Joins Guava

Visual effects supervisor, inferno artist and designer Aron Baxter has left his post with Nice Shoes to join sister facility Guava. The move is the first step in a new expansion effort at Guava. The studio expects to make significant additions to its creative staff and technical resources early in 2005. With Baxter moving to Guava, Nice Shoes has promoted inferno artist John Shea from a nighttime position to days.

Studio Headline News

Alienbrain Studio 7 Updated for 3ds Max 7

An updated integration plug-in for 3ds max 7 is now available for Alienbrain Studio 7. It puts the key functionality of Alienbrain, Avids award-winning digital asset management software for entertainment and computer graphics professionals, at the fingertips of 3D content creators using 3ds max and Alienbrain Studio.

Short Headline News

The Incredibles Makes Quick Getaway onto DVD

In what ranks as the fastest move from theaters to DVD for a Disney/Pixar movie, THE INCREDIBLES (which has grossed more than $257 million domestically) will hits stores March 15. The special two-disc Collectors Edition (Buena Vista Home Ent, $29.99, presented in both widescreen and fullscreen) will be packed with plenty of bonus goodies, including the all-new short, JACK-JACK ATTACK.

Visual Headline News

VES Selects SynCast to Deliver Nominated Material

SyncCast has been selected by the Visual Effects Society (VES) to host and stream the nominated content for voting by its members of the material from many of the box office hits of 2004.

For the first time in the VES Awards' history, final viewing and voting will take place online via the VES Website from Jan. 31 to Feb. 12. This groundbreaking method will allow VES members worldwide to view encrypted clips of the nominees' work and vote in a safe and secure online environment. Only VES members may vote and a special password is required to view and vote online.

Television Headline News

Mel Brooks and BFC Berliner Film to Animate Spaceballs Series

BFC Berliner Film Companie has partnered with Brooksfilms and MGM Domestic Television Distribution, a unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. to create an hour-long pilot and 13x30 animated television series based on the classic Mel Brooks 1987 feature, SPACEBALLS.

Brooks and Thomas Meehan, authors of the original screenplay, will write the pilot and supervise writing on the rest of the series. Brooks will provide the voice of two main characters, President Scroob and Yogurt.

Headline News

Hitchhiker’s Guide Gets Its Voice

Touchstone Pictures announced that Stephen Fry (TVs JEEVES AND WOOSTER) has been selected to lend his voice to the Guide for THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, reports BBC News. In the film directed by Garth Jennings, The Guide is the indispensable, electronic handbook that every galactic traveler needs. The film is based on Douglas Adams famed satirical sci-fi book.

Award Headline News

Send Your Shorts to Rome for Cortoons

Cortoons 2005Rome, ItalyMay 3-6, 2005Deadline: March 15, 2005

Cortoons is an international animated short films festival, which will take place at Cinema Nuovo Olimpia. The event has four categories: from 1 to 4 minutes, from 4 to 20, Italian and International, Flash award and VFX award. The festival will also show the retrospective of Clermont - Ferrand and Filmakademie Baden Wurttemberg festivals. For more information, visit www.cortoons.it.

Headline News

Writers University Announces Industry-Expert Online Courses

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 12:00am

Writers Store Llc. announced its first slate of courses from WritersUniversity.com, a new online learning center featuring a select team of established film and writing industry experts. The Writers University faculty is comprised of entertainment industry educators and authors from various fields of creative writing who provide specialized Web-based courses developed from years of real-world experience. Instructors include authors and educators Karl Iglesias, Michael Halperin, Noah Lukeman (also a literary agent) and Kathie Fong Yoneda (a popular story analyst).

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