Rick DeMott's Recent Posts

Rezn8, an award-winning design and communication company, has produced a graphic-intensive show open and complete graphics package for FLIPPED, a new reality-based television series on MTV. The package included the logo design, animated open, graphic bumpers and backgrounds for the show. The show opens with 30-seconds of show footage propelled at the viewer through a tunnel effect which concludes with the series logo emerging from the back of the tunnel flipping the positions of the two P's.

Holy Cow Spots has created a stop-motion 30-second spot entitled, "Roller Coaster," for General Mills Chex Mix and ad agency Campbell Mithun. Directed by Holy Cow Spots' Shaun Sewter, the spot starts with a lone Chex square that is joined by more pieces, finally creating two complete characters composed of Chex Mix pieces, which ride a roller coaster. For the roller coaster, a 22 foot-long, 12 foot-tall set was constructed. "It took a long time," admitted Holy Cow Spots executive producer David Lyons.

auto.des.sys Inc. has released form.Z 3.8 which replaces form.Z 3.8g that was originally shipped in May. Although only a gamma version, the reception of version 3.8g has been like a "warm welcome home," said Alexandra Yessios, vice president of sales and marketing at auto.des.sys. form.Z is a hybrid solid and surface 3D modeler that combines polygonal with smooth parametric modeling under a single roof. It is complemented by drafting, photo-realistic rendering, Radiosity, walk through animation and advanced CAD capabilities.

Anima Mundi has released the winners for its 2001 festival, which took place from Friday, July 13 Monday, July 23, 2001 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil then moved to São Paulo, Brazil from Wednesday, July 25 Sunday, July 29, 2001. The festival is the major animation festival in South America. The festival included a wide range of open activities, including workshops, lectures and exhibitions. The winners were chosen by a panel of 26 animation industry professionals from around the world. Below is a complete list of winners.

BEST FILM:

Paul Villadolid, a former senior vice president at Walt Disney Television, and Larry Hess, a former software engineer at special effects house Digital Domain, have formed Rebel Arts, a technology and software developer with a proprietary server platform designed to handle massive multiplayer online games. The technology is designed to handle in excess of 100,000 simultaneous users. Strategic partners AMD and Linux NetworX are providing Rebel Arts with critical support, including the AMD-760 MP dual processor chipset and Linux NetworX's Evolocity cluster server system.

Crave Entertainment Group, Inc., parent company to videogame publisher Crave Entertainment, Inc. and SVG Distribution, Inc., has announced that it has secured a US$35 million in funding from Heller Financial. This financing is the first step in a multifaceted capital-restructuring plan for the company. "The industry has been extremely supportive throughout our restructuring, and this new credit line ensures financial support for the ongoing growth of our core business," said Nima Taghavi, chief executive officer, Crave Entertainment Group.

Universal has green-lit an animated version of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Adding more intrigue to the project, Disney veterans Eric Golderg and David Reynolds (THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE) have been signed to direct and write the film respectively. Goldberg co-directed POCAHONTAS and was a key animator on such films as ALADDIN, HERCULES and FANTASIA 2000. Due to the fact that Tom Hanks' Playtone Prods. is producing the film, the TOY STORY star will most likely be a member of the voice cast.

TOPIX has created a computer animated 10-second tag, entitled "Futbol," promoting the new Mennen roll-on deodorant. The spot features an animated Mennen Speed Stick expertly juggling a soccer ball. "After viewing a video of a soccer player bouncing a ball around, I thought it would be interesting to utilize the feeling of a handheld camera," said TOPIX animation director Chris Johnson.

Swatch has announced the winner of the Swatchbeat 2 Flash Animation Competition on August 1. Hundreds of entries from around the world were submitted to a panel of Swiss judges and Internet audiences. The top prize was US$5000 dollars and a trip to the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland from August 9 -13. Each participant had to create a Flash animation no greater than 30 seconds on the theme of "Waiting for the Movies." The winning entry was by Frank Gapinski of www.flashtoonz.com in Australia. The toon features a movie-goer's struggle to get a comfortable seat at the movies.