All AWN Content

* Friday, November 16 Sunday, November 18. Bradford, U.K.

Entry deadline: July 27, 2001

Film Roman announced on Friday, April 6, 2001, that their board of directors has rejected last minute changes to the previously announced Pentamedia stock purchase agreement, and extended the deal close date to April 13 pending continuing discussions between the two companies. Under the terms of the existing agreement, Pentamedia was set to acquire a fully-diluted 60% stake of Film Roman in the form of newly issued common stock for $15 million in cash.

Cartoon Network plans to clean out their vaults and uncork a two-day, 20-hour "The Best We GoT" new and classic cartoon marathon on April 14 and 15, 2001. The marathon will showcase the best classic cartoons on Saturday, April 14, while on Sunday, April 15, the best cartoons from Cartoon Network's acclaimed original animation series will air. "The Best We GoT" will air from 12-10 p.m. (ET, PT) each day. More than 110 cartoons from Cartoon Network's vast archives of more than 8,000 animated titles will air.

Salt Lake City, Utah's Acclaim Studios Salt Lake is looking for aCHARACTER ANIMATOR ... Kirkland, Washington's Big Fish Promotions islooking for a SR. SOFTWARE ENGINEER ... New York, New York's Blue'sClues is looking for a POST PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR ...Toronto, Canada's Cuppa Coffee Animation is looking for a PRODUCER ...Century City, California's EMA Multimedia, Inc. is looking for a WEBDESIGNER ... Halifax, Canada's Fatkat Animation Studios is looking foran ANIMATION / INTERACTIVE (FLASH) SCRIPTWRITER ... San Rafael,

Class-Key Chew-Po Commercials, a division of Klasky Csupo, Inc., has signed 2D/3D animation director Frank Molieri to its directing roster. Frank joins the company after a stint at Warner Bros. Classic Animation, where he directed numerous spots incorporating the studio's family of characters. Molieri broke into animation on the Don Bluth animated feature ROCK A DOODLE. He later freelanced at various animation studios until he signed on at Warner. He has directed spots for Kraft, Pontiac, General Motors, Burger King, Radio Shack and MCI.

TV-Loonland's CONNIE THE COW (52 x 7, produced by Spains Neptuno) has been sold to Disney U.K. for a spring 2002 delivery. After creating quite a buzz at MIPCOM Junior 2000, Munich's TV-Loonland announced at MIP TV that it had sold the pre-school animated series relating the experiences of a curious calf named Connie to Disney's U.K. arm. TV-Loonland has also had Disney success with their live-action series IN A HEARTBEAT.

Spanish animation company BRB Internacional announced at MIP TV a new major financing deal, which will help them expand their operations. Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento (BESI), an Iberian bank, has acquired 25% of BRB International. BESI is a major player in Portugal and Brazil, and part of the NYSE listed Espirito Santo Group (NYSE:ESF). The move enables BRB Internacional to consolidate and increase its position in the international audio-visual market.

Richard Morris, vfx designer behind the "Jackals Forge" animators resource site (www.jackals-forge.com), has joined the BBC under a 10 month contract to design and supervise the graphics for a forthcoming science series entitled HOW TO BUILD A HUMAN. Prior to this move, Morris worked at London's Moving Picture Company (www.moving-picture.co.uk) and was designer and CG supervisor behind the recent LEAF award-winning series BODY STORY. His interest in biomedical subjects dates back to his work for Red Post Production on the BBC's THE HUMAN BODY.

Nickelodeon, one of the leading entertainment brands for kids worldwide, is expanding its reach into China as of May 1, 2001. After visiting Beijing for four days and meeting with China's president Jiang Zemin and other industry officials, Bill Roedy, president MTV Networks International, and Frank Brown, president MTV Networks Asia, made the announcement.

Production, acquisition and distribution company, Harmony Gold has promoted Alan Letz to the newly created position of executive vice president, business development, and hired Judy Gold as vice president, sales and acquisitions. Letz has been with the company since 1985 and moves from his most recent post of senior vice president, sales and acquisitions to concentrate on pioneering Harmony Gold's emergence into the business aspects of new media, Internet, e-commerce, licensing, merchandising and sponsorships tied to Harmony Gold programming.