The 9th Holland Animation Film Festival takes place in Utrecht, The Netherlands, November 13-17, 2002. This year, the festival will screen more than 300 films chosen from over 800 entries. Among the special programs offered at this year's festival are retrospectives on Monique Renault, Chuck Jones, George Pal and Ub Iwerks.
In announcing its fourth quarter and August 31, 2002 year-end results, Corus Entertainment Inc. revealed it has taken a CAD$200 million (approx. US$128 million) write-down of its investment in Nelvana. Nelvana is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. The company took the write-down because of the slowdown in the production and distribution industry over the past year. The write-down includes $40 million (US$25.6 million) from Nelvana's library and $160 million (US$102 million) for goodwill and other intangibles.
Latin American distribution specialist Salsa Entertainment returned from MIPCOM 2002 with a slate of program sales for the Latin American region. The Salsa Entertainment catalogue features award-winning products from well known international producers and distributors including TV-Loonland, Scholastic Entertainment, Decode Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company.
Side Effects Software will be offering a new round of trainer certification courses for Houdini Version 5.5. Certification testing will take place November 21, 22 and 23, 2002, in Santa Monica, California. In addition to having a fully enabled license of Houdini Master for non-commercial use while certified, Houdini trainers are eligible to teach Houdini at the level certified; are invited to participate in beta testing of upcoming versions/products; have access to special Houdini technical support; and receive a listing on the Side Effects Website as a certified Houdini trainer.
RE:Vision Effects has announced that they now offer Mac OS X support for ReelSmart Twixtor and ReelSmart Motion Blur, the company's effects plugins for Apple's compositing software Shake. ReelSmart Twixtor enables users to speed up or slow down image sequences. Twixtor synthesizes unique new frames by warping and interpolating frames of the original sequence employing RE:Vision's proprietary tracking technology that calculates motion for each individual pixel.
Some festival favorites took home awards at this year's I Castelli Animati Festival, in Genzano di Roma, Italy. Concluding on October 27, 2002, the festival honored Christopher Hinton's FLUX with the International Grand Prize, while Robert Bradbrook's HOME ROAD MOVIES picked up the award for Best European Film. Special Jury Prizes were awarded to STROJENIE INSTRUMENTOW (TUNING INSTRUMENTS) by Jerzy Kucia and THE INVASION by Phil Mulloy.
Anima 2003
Brussels, Belgium
Wednesday, February 26 - Sunday, March 09, 2003
Entry Deadline: Monday, November 4, 2002
The long-running litigation over WINNIE THE POOH royalties took a startling turn as accountants hired by the court to audit Disney's records were officially fired on October 25, 2002. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ernest M. Hiroshige had determined that the accountants were biased in favor of Disney and their auditing methods unreliable. He has ordered that a new independent accounting firm be hired.
Cartoon Network has added Hungarian and Romanian to its language services making it available in no less than eleven languages in Europe. Starting out as a pan-European channel in 1993, Cartoon Network now has seven dedicated regional channels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa where it can be enjoyed in English, Danish, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.
Philip H. Knight, co-founder of Nike, Inc., has become the majority shareholder of Portland, Oregon-based Vinton Studios after making a financial investment in the company. The amount of the investment was undisclosed. In addition, Knight will join Vintons board of directors. "Phil Knights investment and board involvement is a tremendous boost to our strategic plan to take Vinton Studios to the highest competitive level in both entertainment and commercial production," said Vinton CEO and president Jeff Farnath.
Armaverse Armatures has unveiled its new line of Phase 3 stop-motion animation armature kits and parts. Dubbed "Humature" by Armaverse, the six-inch human armature is 100% stainless-steel and allows for smaller sets, lighter characters and easier animation. A revamped head support closely follows human form and makes a convenient base for replacement animation. According to the manufacturer, the precise human proportions of the Phase 3 Humature give completed characters extremely realistic movement with correct 90-degree articulation at the knee and ankle joints.
Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment is releasing its summer blockbuster SPIDER-MAN to DVD and home video on Friday, November 1, 2002. Given that most home video releases occur on Tuesdays, look for SPIDER-MAN to do heroic business in home video sales this weekend. SPIDER-MAN will be available in wide and full screen editions on DVD, with a host of exclusive features such as comic-to-feature comparison, a historical documentary on the character and never-before-revealed Spidey factoids.
After successful screenings in San Francisco and New York, the 6th Annual RESFEST will come to Hollywood's Egyptian Theater October 30-November 3, 2002. Showcasing innovative digital films, music videos and animation, the directors of RESFEST created seven thematic shorts programs from over 1,500 submissions. Notable animation screenings include Robert Bradbrook's Cartoon d'Or winning film HOME ROAD MOVIES and the U.S. premiere of Phil Mulloy's THE INVASION.
Head Gear Animation recently completed some spooky stop-motion animation for Cartoon Networks October programming on-air promotions. To promote the network's "Scaretoon Scaretoon Fright Days," Courage the Cowardly Dog and his owner Eustace bury a television set in the backyard. The buried cel animation TV is transformed into a stop-motion zombie version of its formerly benign self. Courage quakes with fear as the TV rises from the grave sporting a promo for "Scaretoon Scaretoon Fright Days" programming.
London-based 4Kids Entertainment International has completed an expansion of its operations that encompasses the promotion of key management and the appointments of new executives. Promoted to the position of commercial director is Helen Howells, who will focus on the company's sub-agent relationships as well as oversee its marketing and creative areas. Howells assumes her new position with 4Kids Entertainment International after serving as director of international licensing. She joined the company in 2000.
Hobbits, wizards, monsters and an adventurous mouse will all be hoping to walk away with a BAFTA at this years British Academy Childrens Film and Television Awards, presented in association with the LEGO Company. LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE, MONSTERS, INC. and STUART LITTLE 2 have all been nominated in the Feature Film category, with the winner to be announced on November 24, 2002 in a ceremony at Londons Park Lane Hilton. The awards ceremony, now in its seventh year, honors the best in childrens TV and film.
On November 7, 2002 the Short Film and Feature Animation executive committee will meet to discuss recommending that the Animated Feature Film category be awarded for the 75th Annual Academy Awards. The category was inaugurated in 2002, when SHREK became the first recipient of the Animated Feature Oscar. Based on the published rules for the Feature Animation category, the executive committee will discuss the eligibility of this year's submitted films.
It's another award for Canadian Christopher Hinton, as the Leipzig DOK Festival honored his animated short FLUX with the Golden Dove for Animated Films. The award was accompanied by 3,000. Other honorees in the Animated Films category were Silver Dove recipients PLAIN PLEASURES by Sarah Cox (UK) and BARCODE by Adriaan Lokman (Netherlands). The jury also gave Honorary Mention to the films ARIA by Piotr Sapegin (Norway) and BOOKASHKIS by Mikhail Aldashin (Russia), which also took home the Audience Award. Leipzig DOK is an annual festival honoring documentary and animated films.
The Academy Award nominated team behind JIMMY NEUTRON is bringing their next project to the really big screen. Opening at IMAX theaters on November 1, 2002 is SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN 3D, the first-ever IMAX 3D (yes, funny glasses needed) animated holiday film. Created by Steve Oedekerk, directed by John A. Davis, with animation provided by DNA Productions and Omation, SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN features the celebrity voices of Jonathan Winters, Ben Stein and Victoria Jackson.
Rhinoceros Visual Effects once again took up the challenge of creating feisty, photo-realistic fruit for Grey Advertising and client Robitussin. As a follow up to their previously completed spot for Robitussin Sunny Orange, Rhinoceros was asked to create a conga line of raspberries for Robitussin Sunny Raspberry. In the spot, the jazzy raspberries join a dancing line of Robitussin lozenges, all heading towards the Sunny Raspberry package. The challenge was to make the raspberries look as real as possible, while still allowing them to get their groove on.
Lost Pencil Animation Studios Inc. has released two new training CDs in their Just Animate series, "Lip Sync" and "Facial Expressions and Body Language." Both CDs demonstrate techniques using Lightwave 7.5, "Lip Sync" offers instruction on how to create multiple phoneme mouth morph targets and an animation of a character speaking.
Arizona International Film Festival 2003
Tucson, Arizona USA
Thursday, April 03 - Sunday, April 13, 2003
Entry Deadline: Friday, February 07, 2003
The 3rd International Animation Festival Of Tehran
Tehran, Iran
Sunday, February 23 - Thursday, February 27, 2003
Entry Deadline: Thursday, November 21, 2002
Animators Unite, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that provides informational and promotional services to the animation industry...
This week, hot forum discussions include Disney's soon-to-be released "tradigital" feature TREASURE PLANET...
