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AWN Headline News

Headline News

Davey and Goliath Get the Word from Scholastic

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and Scholastic have agreed to bring DAVEY AND GOLIATH to a new generation of children in the first major publishing deal for the religious, animated property.

DAVEY AND GOLIATH is a classic stop-motion animated television series that aired in the late 1960s and 1970s, starring Davey Hansen and his talking dog, Goliath, and is a property of the ELCA. The church's mission with DAVEY AND GOLIATH is to bring "moral and religious faith-based values to a new generation of children in lively and engaging ways."

Animation Headline News

Lucasfilm Launches Lucasfilm Animation Singapore

Lucasfilm Ltd. has announced that it has established Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, a digital animation studio designed to produce digital animated content, including films, television and games for global audiences. Gail Currey, vp/gm of Lucasfilm Animation, will lead the Singapore-based creative team. The other investors in the venture include EDB Investments Pte Ltd. and Creative Technology Ltd.

Final Headline News

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children To Be Screen At Venice

Square Enix Co., Ltd. has announced that it will screen a special preview edition of the upcoming FINAL FANTASY VII ADVENT CHILDREN at the 61st Venice International Film Festival, September 1-11 in Venice, Italy. The film is a direct-to-DVD CG-animated sequel to FINAL FANTASY VII, one of the best-selling PlayStation videogames of all time. FINAL FANTASY VII ADVENT CHILDREN will be shown as part of "Venezia Digitale," the new digital image category of the festival. Since the product is still in development, a special preview will be screened at the festival.

Effects Headline News

Darby O'Gill DVD Shows Off Ellenshaw's Effects

Aside from being a charming Irish fairy tale about leprechauns and banshees and co-starring Sean Connery, the soon-to-be James Bond, DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE (1959) was also one of Walt Disney's personal favorites. Released on DVD on Aug. 3, 2004 DARBY O'GILL (Walt Disney Home Ent., $19.99) is particularly noteworthy for its wonderful work by the legendary Peter Ellenshaw (special photographic effects, special art styling), who collaborated with Eustace Lycett (special photographic effects) and Joshua Meador (animation effects).

Headline News

ATI Brings FireGL X3-256 to SIGGRAPH 2004

ATI Technologies continues to innovate for the large AGP market with the new FireGL X3-256 workstation graphics accelerator, which gives users an impressive list of professional features for $1,099.

Creative Headline News

Sideshow Welcomes Creative Director Kobliska

Fresh off the success of three Promax Awards, leading creative concept, design/effects and production company Sideshow Creative has added creative director Andrew Kobliska to its team. Kobliska will be heading up the west coast creative group based in Los Angeles.

"Andrew's vast experience in all realms of our industry makes him a natural fit for Sideshow," said Scott Mantel, Sideshow Creative ceo. "He brings the highest pedigree of strategic thinking and creative leadership to his new role at the company."

Music Headline News

Animator Rocks With Music Video for His Band

Designer/animator/drummer Steve Spatucci has animated a music video for his bands song, "Wars We Need to See," which features the Restraining Order band members performing as animated caricatures of themselves.

Spatucci created the two-minute long video, single-handedly, completely with Flash. Since its launch two weeks ago, it has generated a large amount of traffic to the Website, www.restrainingorderband.com/warsvideo, resulting in some online album sales.

Headline News

Penguin Group USA Inks Deal to Publish Manga for Kids & Adults

Penguin Group USA has signed a three-year deal to publish manga with Digital Manga Inc. in a deal brokered by Eloise Flood, publisher of Razorbill, the newly launched teen imprint from Penguin Young Readers Group and Hikaru Sasahara, ceo of Digital Manga Inc.

Henson Headline News

Kelley Oien Perez Moves Up in Jim Henson Co. Creative Affairs

The Jim Henson Co. has promoted Kelley Oien Perez from director of childrens television to vp, creative affairs. In her new role, Perez will continue to develop preschool and childrens programming for both television and direct-to-video productions in animated and liveaction formats. She will also work closely with HIT Ent. on pre-school projects for the co-production agreement recently announced by the two companies.

The first of these projects is FRANCES, currently in pre-production and based on the best-selling FRANCES TREASURY series of books.

Live-action Headline News

Warner to Host Live-Action Mad Monster Party

Having the potential to fall into the "what were they thinking" remake category, Warner Bros. Pictures and Thunder Road Prods. has announced they will produce a live-action remake of the 1967 Rankin & Bass animated cult hit, MAD MONSTER PARTY?, reports VARIETY. Warner obtained the rights from Canal +, which gained them from Embassy Pictures, which produced the original animated special. John Pardee and Joey Murphy will write the script with Thunder Road's head Basil Iwanyk producing along with Chris Peters and Jackie Gilardi, who brought the project to the studio.

Sound Headline News

Motion Picture Sound Editors Elects New Board of Directors

Elected in a special board election was Marc Lanza (JFK, GLORY) as secretary. Newly elected to two-year terms are sound editors Harry Cheney (BOTTLE ROCKET, DRACULA), Jeremy J. Gordon (THE OC, SMALLVILLE), Robert Hargreaves (DUCK DODGERS, BATMAN BEYOND) Anne-Marie Slack (BRING IT ON, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES), Roland Thai (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, CITY OF GOD) and Steven D. Williams (THIRTEEN DAYS, ARMY OF DARKNESS).

Planeta Headline News

Planeta Junior Expands into Italy

EM.TV AG and DeAPlaneta have expanded their joint venture, Planeta Junior from Spain and Portugal, into Italy, through the Italian media group DeAgostini, which holds a 50% share in DeAPlaneta, together with the Planeta Group. With the marketing expertise of DeAgostini in Italy, the partners intend to make Planeta Junior one of the leading players in the Italian market.

Headline News

It Takes a Village for a Disney Hit

M. Night Shyamalan delivered once again for Disney and Buena Vista, as THE VILLAGE (with some vfx by ILM) scared up an opening gross of nearly $51M for the weekend ended Aug.1, 2004. It is Disney's first hit of the season. Overall, the nation's theaters reported record numbers for July of $1.32B, up from last year's $1.2B, thanks in part to a 6% rise in admissions - 213M vs. 200M.

Animation Headline News

Discreet Announces 3ds max 7 for SIGGRAPH 2004

Discreet will publicly unveil 3ds max 7 -- the newest version of its acclaimed 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software at SIGGRAPH 2004, Aug. 10-12 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

3ds max 7 is expected to ship in fall 2004 for $3,495. Localized versions are planned to be available later in 2004 and 2005. Upgrade pricing from 3ds max 6 is $795; and 3ds max 5 is $1,295.

Headline News

NVIDIA Expands Gelato Sales with International Resellers

NVIDIA has signed agreements with six companies to sell and support the NVIDIA Gelato 1.0 GPU-accelerated final-frame renderer. The companies are also authorized to sell bundles of NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics hardware with Gelato. The NVIDIA Gelato resellers are:

* 3VIS in Montreal and Eastern Canada (www.3vis.ca or www.3vis.com)* BB.TEK.INC in India (www.bbtekinc.com)* Helios|Oceana in Toronto and Central Canada (www.heloc.com)

Animation Headline News

Character Animation Technologies to Preview Muscle Deformation Tool at SIGGRAPH

During SIGGRAPH 2004 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, high-end character animation software developer Character Animation Technologies will preview a new muscle deformation system that will add a whole new dimension to the New Zealand-based company's flagship product, Character Animation Toolkit (CAT), the fully integrated, next-generation character animation plug-in for Discreet 3ds max.

Effects Headline News

Side Effects Hosts Annual Houdini Meeting & Job Fair

Side Effects Software will be hosting its Annual Houdini Meeting on Aug. 8, 2004 during SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles. This event will bring together Houdini users from around the world to network with their peers, witness the official unveiling of Houdini 7 and catch an exclusive sneak-peak into Houdini's future.

Film Headline News

Picture Mill Opens & Closes The Village

Picture Mill was the production company behind the opening and closing sequences for THE VILLAGE. Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan contacted Picture Mill soon after principal photography was done, to begin developing concepts for the titles.

Headline News

Harvie Krumpet Coming to DVD

StudioWorks has announced the 2003 Oscar winner for best animated short film, HARVIE KRUMPET, will be coming to DVD Nov. 9, 2004. The film will be released by Ventura Distribution and sell for $19.99. Further details have not been released, but the Ventura Website has the running time listed as 72 minutes, probably meaning that other shorts will be package along with HARVIE.

Animation Headline News

VirtueGraphics Create 3D Boat Show

VirtueGraphics has created a 3D demonstration of yacht mechanical equipment for boat shows. The 3 1⁄2 minute animation featured Quantum's "zero speed" stabilizers, which are hydraulic-powered devices located under water in the middle of the yacht. The animation compared the stability of a yacht equipped with the Quantum Controls stabilizer against a yacht without one.

Animation Headline News

Ascension & Kaydara Debut New Low-Cost Toon Workstation at SIGGRAPH

Ascension and Kaydara have teamed to create a new low-cost animation workstation called Animation Star, which combines the best motion-capture hardware and software. The product will launch at the annual SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Convention in Los Angeles on August 10, 2004. Ascension will demonstrate its new technology in Booth 1918 at the LA Convention Center.

Headline News

Oregon3D Announces Unreal Technology Seminar at SIGGRAPH 2004

Oregon3D has announced it will offer a series of classes specifically devoted to content creation for the Unreal Engine, the leading 3D technology platform pioneered by Epic Games. Scheduled during the SIGGRAPH 2004 Conference, this one-day session will run on both Aug. 9 and Aug. 10, from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm in the Los Angeles Room at The Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

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