All AWN Content

* Friday, January 28, 2000. Los Angeles, California, USA.

Art In Motion focuses on innovative content and diversity. The criteria for

entry is time rather than medium based, and therefore video, film and

digital projects, animations, Websites, CD-Roms etc. are all eligible.

Hybrids are particularly welcome. There will be a $1000 "Best of Show"

award and "first place" allocations in each exhibition category. For more

information contact Jim Keller or Janet Owen, festival organizers at:

* Friday, February 4 - Saturday, February 12, 2000. Clermont-Ferrand, France.

This year, Clermont-Ferrand Short Films Festival will be featuring its 12th

international competition and 22nd French competition. The festival will

highlight animated films based off of comic strips. Filmmakers and buyers

can take advantage of the short film market, which attracted more than 50

TV channels, 50 distributors, and 60 international festival organizers last

On Wednesday, January 12, 2000, Walt Disney's legendary animator Marc Davis

passed away at Glendale Memorial Hospital shortly following a stroke. He

was 86 years old. Davis was a member of Disney's inner circle known as the

"nine old men." During his 43-year tenure at the studio, Davis brought to

life such classic characters as Bambi, Cinderella, Alice, Briar Rose,

Maleficent and Cruella DeVil. In addition to creating many of Disney's

female characters, he served as a key player in the development of many of

Sony's hit film STUART LITTLE remained at the top of the U.S. box office

this past weekend taking in US$11.21 million in ticket sales. The

giant-sized flick, with primary FX by Sony Pictures Imageworks, additional

animation by CFX and Rhythm & Hues, and miniatures by Thunderstone, has

taken home a little more than cheese with a total purse of $95.3 million.

THE GREEN MILE squeaks by live-action flick THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY to

secure the second spot on the box office charts. The Warner Bros. flick,

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. announced the

simultaneous worldwide VHS release of George Lucas' STAR WARS: EPISODE I

THE PHANTOM MENACE. Young Jedi wanna-bes around the globe will snag their

copy the week of April 3 - 8, 2000. The biggest box office hit of 1999 and

second highest-grossing motion picture of all time worldwide, will official

go on sale in North America on Tuesday, April 4, 2000. The US$922 million

PuppetTime Inc. recently announced that it has released version 1.0 of its

PuppetTime Producer software, an easy to use 3D character animation program

that the company claims makes "the TV-watching generation, the TV-making

generation." PuppetTime Producer is not a character animation package for

animators, but a package for non-animators which allows them to create

'movies' quickly and easily without any knowledge of animation technique at

all. Users can create 3D animation in minutes simply by selecting

* Friday, January 14 - Sunday, January 16, 2000. Boulder, Colorado, USA.

The Moondance International Film Festival's objective is to promote and

encourage women screenwriters and women who make independent films, in any

genre, including animation. There will be one winner in each category:

Filmmaker, Screenwriter, or Documentary Filmmaker. Awards: $2000 for best

original screenplay, $2000 for best independent film, and $1000 for best

documentary film. There will be 2 semi-finalists in each category. All

Toronto-based TOPIX/MAD DOG provided the CG images for "Flying Ball" for

Sears' new Poke-Mart. The 30 and 20 spots were produced for Young &

Rubicam. POKEMON hero, Ash, throws the famous Poke-ball which leads

children like lemmings to Sears' Poke-Mart section to catch all the new

Pokemon products. Diana D'Amelio produced and Patrick Coffey animated the

tags for TOPIX/Mad Dog.

BRUCE GIONET has become BLACK LOGIC's new CGI Supervisor. Gionet will lead

the New York-based company's artists in the production of computer

generated imagery for film, television and advertising. For the last eight

years, Gionet was the Director of CGI at Cyclotron/Post Perfect in New York

City. His credits range from his work on the opening of THE LATE SHOW WITH

DAVID LETTERMAN to Emmy-winning design on WWOR New York's News opening.

Kellogg's Froot Loops spokesman Toucan Sam comes to life with help from

Santa Monica-based SIMEX STUDIOS for a new spot entitled "Time Flies." The

spot highlights the new 2000 Marshmallow Blasted Froot Loops by blasting

Toucan Sam through the air with an explosion of marshmallow "2s". SimEx

produced the spot for ad agency Leo Burnett of Chicago. The SimEx team on

the commercial was animation producer Christina Cox, animation director

Jean Perramon, live-action producer Bob McGinness and live-action director