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AWN Headline News

Mainframe Headline News

Mainframe President Takes Medical Leave

Canadian computer animation company Mainframe Entertainment has announced that company president Brett Gannon is temporarily stepping down from his post and will be taking an extended medical leave due to an undisclosed illness. Gannon's responsibilities will be taken over by CFO George Lawton, who is based in Canada, and Los Angeles-based Mark Fleischer, president Mainframe USA. According to Mainframe, Gannon intends to return to the company once fully recovered.

Festival Headline News

ANIMA 2003 Deadline Is Fast Approaching!

Anima 2003 (formerly the Brussels Festival of Cartoons and Animated Films) will take place from February 26 - March 9, 2003. The goal of Anima 2003 is to promote cartoons and animated films from all over the world. It also seeks to foster a dialogue between professionals, filmmakers and the public, and to raise awareness of quality animation and computer generated images among film and television distributors. The festival is a non-competitive event that is open to all animated fiction films and makes no distinction between formats, running time or techniques.

Film Headline News

The ChubbChubbs Garners Festival Honors

On October 20, the LA International Short Film Festival honored Sony Pictures Imageworks CG short THE CHUBBCHUBBS as Best Animated Short Film. The comedy, directed by Eric Armstrong (animation supervisor for STUART LITTLE 2 and HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE), features an alien hero named Meeper who valiantly tries to warn the patrons of the Ale-E-Inn of impending intergalactic danger. THE CHUBBCHUBBS is the first digitally animated short film produced by Imageworks, and it also recently took Best Short Film honors at Digital Media World's LEAF Awards.

Cartoon Headline News

Cartoon Network Dives In To Adult Swim

Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's successful block of late night animation for adults, will join the schedule five times per week beginning Sunday, January 12, 2003. Airing from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am (ET/PT) Sunday-Thursday, the block will showcase recent acquisition FUTURAMA, along with quirky original animated series including HOME MOVIES, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE and HARVEY BIRDMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW, and popular action/anime series COWBOY BEBOP and INUYASHA.

Film Headline News

Johnny Bravo Rocks To The Big Screen

SCORPION KING star and wrestling champ The Rock may be cooking up a plan to play Johnny Bravo in the live-action feature film adaptation of the animated series. According to VARIETY, Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired the JOHNNY BRAVO feature film rights from Cartoon Network and creator Van Partible (who will exec. produce) in hopes of putting The Rock in the starring role. Neal Moritz and Marty Adelstein will produce for Warner Bros. via their Original Film production banner.

Kids Headline News

UPN To Drop Kids Block

ELECTRONIC MEDIA ONLINE is reporting that U.S. broadcast network UPN will be dropping Disney's two-hour animated block beginning in 2003, opting instead to give the time slots back to stations. The kids' block airs weekdays on various UPN affiliates and features such series as DIGIMON and DISNEY'S RECESS. Disney has been programming the block since 1999. The two-hour slot will likely be handed back to affiliates for syndicated or local programming, effectively removing at least one network from the broadcast 'toon wars.

Events Headline News

New Additions To AWN's Calendar Of Events

This week's updates to the Calendar of Events include:A Midsummer Night's Dream: Thursday, October 17, 2002, Los Angeles, California USA . . . IPEX - Independent Publishing Experience: Saturday, October 26, 2002, Los Angeles, California USA . . . Tricky Women: Friday, March 07 - Thursday, March 13, 2003, Vienna, Austria.

Headline News

Siggraph 2004 Moves To Los Angeles

Siggraph ACM has announced that SIGGRAPH 2004, the 31st International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, will be held August 8-12, 2004 in Los Angeles, California, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Originally scheduled for Atlanta, organizers say the decision to change the location to Los Angeles was made to better serve the needs of both attendees and exhibitors. "We are very pleased with the selection of Los Angeles as the host city for SIGGRAPH 2004," said Dena Slothower, SIGGRAPH 2004 Conference Chair from Stanford University.

Headline News

Goodspot Delivers NFL Graphics Package For Fox Sports

Santa Monica, California-based Goodspot Design recently completed an extensive package of original broadcast design and animation work for Fox Sports' 2002 NFL on-air promotions graphics. The 30-, 20- and 10-second promos debuted on Fox in September 2002.

Animation Headline News

Teletoon Honors Canadian Students With Scholarship Awards

Teletoon, Canadas 24-hour animation station, has announced the twelve Canadian students who have won this year's Teletoon Animation Scholarship Award. The award is one of the few for arts students and the only formal national contest for students of animation. Since the launch of the scholarship program five years ago, Teletoon has awarded more than CAD $160,000 to students studying animation. This years group of winners represents a wide range of applicants from major animation schools to smaller, rural high schools.

Effects Headline News

The Ring Rings Up $15 Million

DreamWorks' new thriller THE RING, with visual effects by Tippett Studios, Rhythm & Hues and Asylum, debuted at number one this weekend with $15M. The film is a remake of the Japanese hit RINGU, about a cursed videotape that causes all those who watch it to die within seven days. THE RING certainly put a curse on RED DRAGON, which dropped to third after holding the top spot for two weeks. The serial killer thriller, with visual effects by Cinesite, earned $8.8M for a two-week total of $77.8M. JONAH: A VEGGIETALES MOVIE has edged out action comedy THE TUXEDO for eighth place.

Show Headline News

Yu-Gi-Oh! Record To Be Released

4Kids Entertainment has signed an agreement with DreamWorks Records to release an album based upon the music in the YU-GI-OH! animated television series. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the album, titled YU-GI-OH!: MUSIC TO DUEL BY, will be available at retail on October 29, 2002. The album will contain the YU-GI-OH! theme songs as well as orchestral passages and other songs from the television series. Also on the album will be some new music scheduled to be included in future episodes of YU-GI-OH!

Online Headline News

Viewpoint and America Online Expand Relationship

Viewpoint Corporation, a leading provider of interactive media technologies and services, announced that it has expanded its relationship with America Online, Inc. to cover use of Viewpoint technology for new features in AOL 8.0, Instant Messaging, and within other applications. The new arrangement involves use of Viewpoint interactive graphics within the recently released AOL 8.0 client, including many facets of the AOL desktop.

Headline News

Buena Vista Licenses Classic Treasures For Pacific Rim Broadcast

Buena Vista International Television has licensed its 'Classic Treasures' package to a number of key broadcasters across the Asia Pacific region for telecast on terrestrial television for the first time. The collection, which includes A BUG'S LIFE, MULAN, POCAHONTAS, TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2 will air on the Seven Network in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand and on the Media Corp-owned Channel 5 in Singapore.

Digital Headline News

Digital Domain Launches D2 Software, Inc.

Digital effects studio Digital Domain has formed D2 Software, Inc. to develop, market and support digital image processing software based upon the proprietary technology developed by the company over the last decade. The flagship of the new companys software line will be Nuke, Digital Domains Academy Award-winning compositing software that operates on NT, Linux and IRIX platforms. "As a nodal-based compositing solution, Nuke is more advanced than anything currently available on the market," noted Michael Taylor, Digital Domains VP, Digital Studio.

Design Headline News

V-12 Commercials Expands, Signs Director Linzi Knight

Based on the success of live-action spots for AT&T, Verizon, PBS and others, Studio V-12 has recently launched a separate commercial division to handle the growing workload. Continuing its expansion, V-12 announces the addition of director Linzi Knight. Knight joins the current V-12 roster of Juan Delcan, V-12 Co-Founder David Hwang and Daryl Goodrich. After training in Toronto as a graphic designer, Knight spent five years pursuing design opportunities in Europe where she worked in top European design firms like Grapus in Paris and Meta Design in Berlin.

Series Headline News

Urban Entertainment Releases The Contract On DVD

The world of adult animation gets a decidedly urban turn with the release of THE CONTRACT on October 22, 2002. Urban Entertainment (UE) is venturing into the DVD market with its first release of an original animation project created for the Web. THE CONTRACT is the story of Bishop, a professional assassin who works his way up the ranks from an enforcer to a low-level drug dealer to the point man for international crime lord, Damien Wiles. Bishop must contend with his feelings when he is assigned to watch and eventually kill Damiens girlfriend, Cynda.

Headline News

Mental Ray For Maya Is Now Free To 4.5 Users

Alias|Wavefront announced that it is now offering the mental ray for Maya plug-in at no extra charge to all Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited customers. The mental ray for Maya plug-in, previously priced at US $3,995 is available free to all Maya customers beginning with Maya 4.5. Maya 4.5 customers can now download mental ray for Maya 1.5 public beta at www.aliaswavefront.com/maya/getmental. This announcement covers all platforms which Maya is available for, including Mac.

Headline News

Slave Opens Sister Company In Bucharest

London-based computer animation studio Slave Studios Ltd. has opened Bravo Studios, a sister company based in Bucharest. Bravo Studios is headed by Cinesite veteran Bill Scanlon, and opened in summer 2002 with 30 animators. The studio expects to increase its staff to over 50 animators by 2003. Slave and Bravo are currently at work on numerous projects for television and film. Among other projects, the studio recently completed SPHERIKS, a 26 x half-hour TV series in partnership with Passion Pictures for FIFA, featuring the official mascots for the WORLD CUP 2002.

Kika Headline News

KI.KA Wants Its EM.TV

At MIPCOM, EM.TV & Merchandising AG concluded a comprehensive deal with the childrens channel KI.KA that sees the German public broadcaster acquiring at least 300 half-hours of children's and youth programming from EM.TV, for broadcast on the jointly owned ARD-ZDF channel. Under the terms of the deal, KI.KA will receive the first free-TV broadcasting rights for all new shows, which will include POOCHINI, MOMO and WHAT ABOUT MIMI?

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