Los Angeles ACM SIGGRAPH Presents: The Visual Effects of 'The Last Samurai'Los Angeles, California, USAApril 14, 2004
Buy KILL BILL, VOL. 1 on DVD April 13 (Miramax Home Ent., $29.99) and watch it again or for the first time before checking out VOL 2 in theaters this weekend. That was always the shrewd marketing plan and, if Quentin Tarantino has his way there will be an anime prequel in the future. For now, enjoy the orgasmic blood and gore of this Hong Kong samurai/spaghetti western homage with left for dead assassin Uma Thurman getting her revenge. Splashy color, anime (from Production I.G.) a climactic swordfight in black and white (to appease the MPAA), flashbacks, flashforwards - it's a '70s dream.
ADV Films and ADV Manga will be releasing five new manga and four new anime titles as well as the third season of GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA on April 20, 2004. ADV Film's anime DVDs will include AURA BATTLER DUNBINE, KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC, MAGICAL SHOPPING ARCADE ABENOBASHI and WEDDING PEACH. ADV Manga's titles include ARIA, Volume 1 of 3, THE RULER OF THE LAND, Volume 1 of 31, TO HEART, Volume 1 of 3, AZUMANGA DAIOH, Volume 4 of 4 and FULL METAL PANIC! Volume 4 of 5.
Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) has appointed Mark J. Halacy to evp, Global Human Resources, overseeing the company's global HR operations across North America, Europe and Asia.
"Mark has led many successful HR development initiatives across large-scale, global organizations," said Bruce Hack, ceo of VU Games, to whom Halacy will report. "He will play an important leadership role at VU Games, as we aim to strengthen our global practices and capabilities."
The 12th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film 2004 (April 1-6, 2004) has broken the attendance record of the last festival with more than 40,000 attendees. The closing events were completely sold out. 500 films were screened at four venues over the six days. Adding to its international acclaim, TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE took home the feature prize.
The winners were:
State of Baden-Württemberg Award 7,500 EURFLUX -- Christopher Hinton, Canada 2002
Plan-B Toys and Radioactive Clown have announced a new series of highly detailed, historically accurate, WWII action figures based on Activision's award-winning PC game, CALL OF DUTY. Series 1 will be available in North America and Europe May 2004.
Irving Plonskier joins Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) as exec director, advertising sales, Latin America to direct SPTI's pan-regional advertising sales business.
Seek a surgeon that likes to play videogames and odds are the doctor is less likely to make a mistake. The Associated Press reports that in a recent study, researchers found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing videogames made about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the tasks 27% faster than their counterparts who did not play videogames.
Lucasfilm has announced that STAR WARS: EPISODE III will be released to theaters in the U.S. and Canada on Thursday, May 19, 2005. The release will be nearly simultaneous around the globe. In Japan, the film will be released in July, the month in which all previous STAR WARS premiered.
Nickelodeons DORA THE EXPLORER is one of the winners of the 63rd Annual Peabody Awards to be awarded by the University of Georgias Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication on May 17, 2004. The 29 award winners for excellence in electronic media, chosen from more than 1,100 entries, also includes recognition for Japans TV Asahi, MOTHER FLEW AWAY AS A KITE, an arresting animated recounting of the last days of WWII.
Trolling for its next hit, DIC Entertainment has acquired worldwide entertainment and licensing rights from the Troll Company (a.k.a. Dam Things) to the iconic spiky, colorful-haired Troll character to be developed into an entertainment and lifestyle brand for tweens, called TROLLZ.
Discreet has begun shipping its smoke 6 system on the Intel-based IBM workstation running Linux. The smoke 6 editing and finishing system is already available on the Silicon Graphics Octane2 and Silicon Graphics Tezro visual workstations. The addition of Linux workstation support and new pricing ensures that the smoke 6 system is accessible to broadcasters and the growing segment of mid-range post-production facilities.
The 3D Festival, running May 3-6 in Copenhagen, has announced new speakers and sessions from Weta Digital, ESC Ent. and more. This year's 3D Festival Conference is co-organized by CGNetworks and Gnomon School of Visual Effects.
HarperCollins Childrens Books will launch a book series based on the new television series, ASTRO BOY, produced by Sony Pictures Ent. Japan and Tezuka Prods. HarperKids Ent. has been granted North American English-language rights from Sony Pictures Consumer Products. HarperCollins will launch the 30 book program in September 2004 with seven titles: one color and activity book, one color and sticker book, two beginning readers, two storybooks, and one chapter book.
Veteran filmmaker and stop-motion magician Ray Harryhausen (author of the newly published RAY HARRYHAUSEN: AN ANIMATED LIFE with Tony Dalton from Billboard Books) will discuss and present five newly restored prints of his classic fairy tales at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on April 23 at 7:30 p.m., in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The event serves as the Academy's 2004 George Pal Lecture on Fantasy in Film.
Mondo TV has signed a new deal with Padmalaya Telefilms Ltd. to co-produce and commercial exploit four new animated TV series as well as the licensing of 1,000 Mondo TVs library episodes. The deal sees 104 half-hour episodes, each having a budget of $135,000, to be produced at Padmalaya Telefilms, worth $14 million to the Indian studio, which is a subsidiary of Zee Telefilms Ltd.
Entertainment Rights Plc (ER) had announced that it has acquired the distribution rights to Mattel's fourth feature length film, BARBIE AS THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER. ER will release the title in the U.K. on DVD and video on its own label Right Ent. ER has also secured international TV rights, excluding North America.
Tokyo-based Robot Communications relied on Discreets 3ds max to create the introductory cinematic opening sequence for ONIMUSHA 3: DEMON SIEGE, the final installment in the critically acclaimed game series from Capcom. The game, running on Sony Computer Ent.s PlayStation 2 platform, has been available in Japan since February 2004, and is expected to be available April 2004 in North America.
Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) is bringing its big animated series, ASTRO BOY, to MIP-TV at stand M5.01. ASTRO BOY is amongst a diverse slate from SPTI, which includes Stephen Kings KINGDOM HOSPITAL, JOAN OF ARCADIA, MISSING, THE RESIDENTS, BEWITCHED IN TOKYO, SEA OF SOULS and POOR ANASTASIA.
Kaydara Inc. has announced its first middleware solution for game developers, HumanIK | Middleware, a character animation and rigging technology. With HumanIK | Middleware, game developers will now be able to easily embed the character animation technology found in MOTIONBUILDER directly into their game engine. The new product will be available in the second quarter 2004.
Warner Bros. Online has launched the new SCOOBY-DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED Website (www.scoobydoo2movie.com), containing new interactive features. The new live-action feature will be released in theaters on March 26, 2004. Additionally, the overall SCOOBY-DOO brand site (www.scoobydoo.com) is re-launching with a new look adding special games, showcase, Scooby Snacks and Scooby store sections.
U.K. production company Corsham Entertainment has agreed in principle to co-produce with Japanese anime production company Madhouse the 26x30 plus comedy/anime series for teens, NATURAL BORN KITTENS.
Corsham was founded by Oscar-winning STAR WARS producer Gary Kurtz and BIONICLE co-creator Alastair Swinnerton, while Madhouse is one of the top studios in Japan, with credits ranging from feature films NINJA SCROLL, METROPOLIS, VAMPIRE HUNTER D, ANIMATRIX, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS and TOKYO GODFATHERS to TV series CARDCAPTORS and BEYBLADE.
Evergreen Entertainment will be offer at MIP-TV the first screen images for STARK RAVEN: THE MOVIE, an 85-minute original movie based on the popular comic books created and written by Ken Smith.
STARK RAVEN: THE MOVIE is an action-packed animated feature film, created and developed by Smith, written by Jono Howard, produced by Steve Walsh, and directed by Hervé Bédard, aimed at a 16+ demographic. Now in production, it will be delivered in spring 2005.
Fox Kids Europe (FKE), will launch PUCCA at MIP-TV, an animated TV series based on the funky, cult Korean property created by VOOZ Co., Ltd. FKE has acquired all television and home video rights for the whole of Europe and the Middle East, for the 24x2.5 animated short PUCCA series.
DECODE Entertainment will have two animated series available at MIP-TV -- pre-school hit FRANNY'S FEET and 2D adventure show KING. Other product includes THE SAVE-UMS! and THE BLOBHEADS. During the market, DECODE will be based on the Don Juan boat, Jette Albert-Edouard, phone +33.04.9.298.7124.
