AWN Headline News

Content developer ScreamDesign.com has launched its original Web tool Flash Blaster II, which helps users create high-end Flash animations without software or training. According to ScreamDesign, even novice users can create custom, professional-quality Flash animations in a matter of minutes. FlashBlaster gives users access to a creative library of Flash animation templates, which can be modified easily to create personal messages with unique graphics, music and sound.

The National Film Boards Animation Studio is reaching out to emerging animators across Canada with its new "Animation Hothouse" program. Six young filmmakers have been selected to participate in the intensive program, directing an animated work ranging from ten seconds to thirty seconds. The selected students will spend 12 weeks with the NFBs community of filmmakers in Montreal, where theyll be provided with tools, resources, support and mentoring.

Dr. Steve Sullivan has been promoted to research and development director at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Sullivan, who most recently headed up a computer vision team within the R&D group, has been instrumental in developing systems for matchmoving, image-based modeling and rendering, and motion-capture. In 1996, Sullivan received a PhD. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with an emphasis on automatic object modeling, recognition and surface representations.

AWN's Upcoming Theatrical Releases database has been updated with many new releases, including information and links to some upcoming animated feature films from Europe: El CID, KAENA and THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE. Visit AWNs Theatrical Releases Database to find out the who, what, where and when regarding all the international animated and visual effects features coming out in the next few years.

Uli Meyer Studios has just finished another animated commercial featuring Lil Red Button Man, the character the studio created to embody the interactive features of the BSKYB network. In "Rock Idol," Lil Red and video game star Lara Croft face off to entice viewers to play TOMB RAIDER as part of BSKYB's interactive games selection. In the spot, the animated Lara Croft is on a mission through a museum. She leaps over and ducks under laser beams until she finds what appears to be a statue of a mystical icon.

Kevin Prendiville, former visual effects supervisor at Ring of Fire, has joined The Syndicate as the studio's new VFX supervisor and lead flame artist. Previously, Prendiville was the Henry artist at Hollywood-based visual effects house Novocom, where he worked on commercials for Discover Card, AT&T, Miller Lite, Chevy Blazer, Levis, Allsport and Mountain Dew. His music video work at Novocom included clips for Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz, and a special effects heavy Garth Brooks track that won the Country Music video of the year award in 1995.

Animation supervisors and or directors take note! The deadline for entries for the First Boards Awards has been extended to Thursday, January 16, 2003. Every year, thousands of freshman around the world are forced to do unspeakable things in order to get a break in advertising. That's why each year 'BOARDS magazine puts on the First Boards Awards, a showcase for emerging international talent that aims to encourage up and comers and help them get on in the business, without having to suck up to their bosses and generally debase themselves.

Middle-Earth and the Men in Black made the short list, as did the clone army and the Quidditch team. The nominees for 2002's Best Visual Effects will be culled from a short list of feature films with primary visual effects from Digital Domain, ILM, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Weta Digital. Worthy of noting all the films on the short list made over $100 million in U.S. theatrical release, with four of the films topping $200 million. Fifteen-minute clip reels from each of the seven films will be screened for the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee on February 5, 2003.

Vancouver-based computer animation studio Mainframe Entertainment, Inc. is bringing two new animated projects to this year's NATPE: ALIEN LEGION and MAXINE 5. ALIEN LEGION, based on the cult comic book series created by Carl Potts, follows the futuristic exploits of the Legion's Force Nomad and its multi-species ranks of alien legionnaires. Culled from the unwanted of three galaxies, legionnaires are the expendable shock troops and peacekeepers of the new intergalactic realm.

In an attempt to reach out to the growing desktop visual effects community, Discreet has announced it is repricing the update to version 2.1 of its paint, animation and 3D compositing software combustion to US$995. Discreet's combustion technology has been used to produce visual effects in recent blockbuster films such as STAR TREK NEMESIS, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS and both LORD OF THE RINGS films.

ILM animation director Tom Bertino and senior VP Patty Blau head a roster of presenters at Expression Center for New Media's "Insider Day," January 10, 2003. Ex'pression hosts ten Insider Days a year and each includes workshops and seminars featuring technology movers and shakers, famous producers and engineers, musical and digital artists, and other resources to keep students on the new media front lines. The Insider Day experience provides a valuable networking arsenal for students after graduation.

Raiding the pool of talent left after Mill Film removed itself from the feature effects business, Cinesite Europe, Ltd. has appointed Mill Film's former managing director Antony Hunt as managing director and former director of miniature effects at Mill Film José Granell as visual effects supervisor/director of models. These senior staff members join CG artists Simon Stanley-Clamp, Andy Kind, Ivor Middleton and Royston Wilcocks, all also formerly of Mill Film. Cinesite Europe, Ltd.