All AWN Content

Gullane Entertainment has promoted David Jacobs to senior vice president, consumer products for the Americas. Jacobs will now oversee the newly created consumer products division in North and South America. This division encompasses Gullane's licensing, publishing, consumer marketing and live events for such properties as THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE and GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS. Jacobs joined Gullane in 1998 as vice president, group head of U.S. licensing. Prior to joining Gullane, Jacobs spent 11 years with Sesame Workshop, previously Children's Television Workshop.

5th Annual California Sun International Animation Festival. Northridge, California. Thursday, April 4, 2002 Saturday, April 6, 2002.Entry Deadline: January 31, 2002. All genres welcome; traditional, experimental, computer, TV commercial and visual effects. Entry forms and additional info are available on line athttp://www.csun.edu/animate

Knitting Independent Film Series. Beginning on January 29, 2002, the Knitting FactoryHollywood will present an on-going showcase of short and feature-length films from around the world. Space is also available for private screenings. For more information or to submit your film, go to: http://www.knittingfactory.com/kifs

Vanilla Sky Tops Box Office. The psychological drama VANILLA SKY, with visual effects by Digital Domain, was number one at the box office this weekend, bringing in a strong $25M in its debut. Casino heist flick OCEANS ELEVEN, with visual effects by E=mc2 and Cinesite, ran a close second earning $23M for a two-week cume of $73.3M. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERERS STONE, with visual effects by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Rhythm & Hues, fell two spots to fourth, with $9.9M for the weekend and $253.3M to date.

SANTA, BABY!, a new animated holiday special, will premiere Monday, December 17 at 8:00 pm on FOX. The one hour special is produced by Rankin/Bass and sponsored by Coca-Cola. Featuring the voices of Gregory Hines, Eartha Kitt, Patti LaBelle and Vanessa Williams, SANTA BABY! tells the story of Noel, a once successful songwriter who becomes a sidewalk Santa in the hope of breaking his writer's block. With the help of his wife, daughter, a Christmas partridge named Melody Songbird and a cat named Emerald, Noel discovers his hit song and the true meaning of Christmas.

Jamie Pilgrim has been named to the position of research and development technical director at visual effects house CFX (formerly Centropolis Effects). Pilgrim was most recently a creature technical director on LORD OF THE RINGS and his work included writing proprietary software for muscle systems, tree and branch generation and articulated body dynamics, as well as developing the look for several key particle effects for the film. As lead animator on THE MATRIX, he wrote proprietary Maya plug-ins for procedural animation and animated shots through several sequences.

Each week, Animation World Magazine offers new articles, special features and theme-based coverage of the art, craft and industry of animation. New this week:

- Sketching on Location: Three Dimensional FiguresRenowned drawing instructor Glenn Vilppu continues with his tenth "sketching on location" teaching installment. This month we delve into creating three-dimensional forms with the use of light.

Monster Distributes has just completed a deal with Discovery Kids UK to broadcast its educational animated series WHY? The series, which is scheduled to begin airing January 1, 2002, was also recently sold to Mediapark for Pay TV in Spain. A Pay TV deal in Brazil is currently in negotiation. The 24 x 2 minute pre-school series was animated by Irish animation company Brown Bag Films, and explains how things work.

Kaydara Inc. announced the release of FiLMBOX 3.2, the latest version of the company's real-time 3D character animation solution. With an enhanced user interface and workflow, FiLMBOX 3.2 introduces new features for both keyframe and motion-capture-based character animation for game, film, TV and Web productions.