AWN Headline News

The UK's Animex animation festival has announced that it will host veteran voice actor Nancy Cartwright and WETA's special effects expert Jason Schieffler as the special guests for its 2003 event. Animex 2003 will be held January 28 31, 2003 in Middlesbrough, UK. Organized by the University of Teesside, in collaboration with Middlesbrough Council, Animex is now in its fourth year.

The 7th edition of Cartoons On The Bay, International Festival of Television Animation, will be held in Positano, Italy on April 9-13, 2003. Cartoons on the Bay is an international event with awards, workshops, lectures and events centering on the ever-changing world of television animation. The Pulcinella Awards Competition is open to all products in animation for television and the Internet, including pilots of series. In 2003, the Competition will also be open to short-films not produced, coproduced or pre-acquired by a television company. Works completed after the 1st of January 2002 and created with any kind of animation technique may participate. The various Pulcinella Awards are presented to eight competing categories including best series for infants, children, young adults & adults, all audiences, best pilot, best TV movie, best short film, best European program, best program of the year and best character of the year. Entry into the Competition is free. The deadline for sending materials is January 20, 2003. For more information and registration forms email: cartoonsbay@raitrade.it or visit the Website: --> http://www.cartoonsbay.com

This week's updates to the Calendar of Events include:

Cartoons On The Bay, Positano, Italy

Wednesday, April 09 - Sunday, April 13, 2003

Entry Deadline: Monday, January 20, 2003

First Universal teamed with Marvel to bring THE HULK to life for moviegoers in summer 2003. Now Marvel Studios has entered into an agreement with Universal Pictures to bring two more super heroes to the big screen: Sub-Mariner and Prime. First up is SUB-MARINER, currently in development. The film will follow the adventures of the troubled Prince Namor, a half-man/half-amphibian creature from Atlantis. David Self, best known for his adaptation of the graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION for DreamWorks, will write the screenplay.

Hibbert Ralph Animation (HRA) recently completed two 30-second commercials for the Colorado Lottery by way of Denver-based agency Karsh & Hagan, each incorporating very different styles and techniques. Directed by Tom Gravestock, "Musical Machine" combines live-action stills with 2D and multi-media and follows the yellow lottery balls as they move through a giant musical machine. The music machine itself is a mixed-media sculpture of paint pots, car parts and drainpipes, which is watched over by 2D animated attendants.

Plant modeling and animation software natFX v2.0 for Maya is now available. Targeting the game developer community with its new set of powerful features allowing generation of low polygonal trees that are photo-realistic and can be animated with ease, Bionatics states that its 2D/3D hybrid technology will allow users to cut production costs by minimizing time spent on plant modeling and animation.

Taiwan International Animation Festival

Kaohsiung/Taipei, Taiwan

April 2003 (Dates TBA)

Entry Deadline: Sunday, December 15, 2002

New York-based animation studio The Ink Tank has created four minutes of animation for ENCUENTRO, a two-hour documentary produced by Ninguna Ciencia for Puerto Rican television. The documentary features interviews with and music from several well-known Puerto Rican musicians including actor/songwriter Ruben Bladés. The animation is interspersed throughout the program and follows the life of a fictional musician from conception to the afterlife.

Discreet has released gmax 1.2, a free downloadable video game modification application used by game enthusiasts, game developers and publishers. With over 300,000 registered users since its 2001 release, gmax software has become a popular tool for gamers wanting to add custom characters, environments and animations to PC games. Leading game developers and publishers such as Infogrames, Electronic Arts and Microsoft have adopted gmax to produce gmax-ready titles with customization capabilities to enhance the title's appeal to the rapidly growing game "modder" community.

Emmy-winning television writer Hilary Bader has died of breast cancer Thursday, November 7, 2002. She was 50 years old. Bader is probably best known as one of the writers of the Emmy and Annie award winning series BATMAN BEYOND, and has also penned scripts for Kids' WB! series THE ZETA PROJECT and the STAR TREK series THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER.