All AWN Content
Vivendi Universal Games Announces Ice Age 2 Game
Vivendi Universal Games announced that a videogame is in development based on 20th Century Fox's upcoming family film, ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN.
The videogame will be available in stores spring 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance and PC. It will sell for $19.99 on PC, $29.99 for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance and $39.99 for consoles.
Big Machine Titles X-Testers For The Learning Channel
Big Machine Design (BMD) has produced a new main title opening sequence and show graphics package for the TV program X-TESTERS, which airs on The Learning Channel. For X-TESTERS, BMD produced a main title opening sequence combining graphics and live action. BMDs client for the program was Lee Toft, post supervisor at Mike Mathis Prods.
Development Execs: Who They Are and How They Got There
Joe Strike looks into the anatomy of a development exec who are they and how did they get there?
Brickyard VFX Expands Workload for Volkswagen Shorts
Brickyard VFX expanded its work for Volkswagen from visual effects to end-to-end creative direction with 14 short films to promo the 2006 Volkswagen (VW) Passat. VW and advertising agency Arnold Worldwide tapped Brickyard as one of a handful of production entities to conceive and produce the clever and artsy :15-second films, each of which focuses on one of the features of the new "beyond-loaded" Passat. The Volkswagen Passat Feature Films Project has been rolled out via www.vw.com and traditional broadcast media.
RE:Vision Effects Releases Twixtor for XSI
RE:Vision Effects offers Twixtor, their popular retiming solution, for SOFTIMAGE|XSI animation software.
Twixtor 4.5 raises the bar in motion estimation. Nick Brooks, Oscar and Emmy winner for visual effects, said, "Twixtor 4.5 represents a new touchstone in retiming. The difference in accuracy means that retiming artifacts are either drastically reduced or disappear on the hardest to retime footage. "
Twixtor runs as an FxTree operator within SOFTIMAGE|XSI and provides the following features:* Calculation of motion vectors at each pixel.
yU + co Adds Final Flourish to Geisha
yU + co designed and produced the main-on-end title sequence for Sony Pictures MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, delivering a gorgeous, thought-provoking sequence.
Framestore CFC Alters Landscape for Nanny McPhee
NANNY MCPHEE, the new children's fantasy film, directed by Kirk Jones and starring Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, from a screenplay by Thompson, opens Jan. 27 through Universal Pictures. A team of more than 80 artists and technicians at Framestore CFC in London worked for nine months on the films digital vfx, providing some 150 shots. In addition, Framestore CFC's Digital Lab facility created the film's distinctive Digital Intermediate.
The Mill Names Marc Ruxin COO
Marc Ruxin has been hired as the coo of The Mill Group North America and Alistair Thompson has been promoted to md of The Mill New York.
Ruxin will be responsible for the growth, management and development of new products and services for The Mill and BEAM.TV. Ruxin brings 13 years of experience leading strategy, business development and marketing efforts on both the client and agency side of the technology and entertainment business.
Sharon Ngoi New Creative Director on Disney Channel's Marketing Team
Sharon Ngoi joins Disney Channel's marketing team as creative director and will work on promoting the Playhouse Disney-branded block, a learning-focused daypart for preschoolers, their parents and caregivers.
Digital Musings From the Editor:
VegasBuzzz.com Launches Anime News Channel
Vegas Buzz (www.vegasbuzzz.com) has launched a new channel dedicated to Anime News. The channel will cover the gamut of anime, including manga. The new service will cover TV series and features that have kids as their core audience or adults only in mind. Vegas Buzz hopes to capitalize on the ever-growing arena, which has quietly become a billion dollar a year business. For more information, visit www.animevegas.blogspot.com/.
Introduction to Stop Motion Animation
Age: Grades 13 & above
Beginners Welcome!
Stop Motion is animaton that uses, puppets, claymation, moving lego men etc . Movies like "A Nightmare Before Christmas", "James and the Giant Peach", and shows like "Wallace and Grommit", "Gumby", and "Thunderbirds" all use stop-motion animation.
Learn how to create your own stop-motion animation shorts in this 10 day program. Students will work together on a project that will end with a completed film.
Concrete Pictures Gets Rose Bowl Open
Kicking off January's highly anticipated Rose Bowl, ABC Sports has tapped Concrete Pictures to produce the open for the Bowl Championship Series' (BCS) National Championship game between University of Southern California and the University of Texas. The 1:40 spot, helmed by Tripp Dixon, will feature famed college football broadcaster Keith Jackson guiding fans through the thrilling tale of the 2005 college football season.
Valve Unveils 64-Bit Source Game Engine
Valve released a 64-bit version of its Source game engine technology. The first 64-bit Valve games released will be native 64-bit versions of HALF-LIFE 2 and LOST COAST, and have been developed to take advantage of AMD Athlon 64 FX processor-based systems.
The 64-bit versions of these games are being offered to all HALF-LIFE 2 owners via Steam, Valve's online platform for delivering games and digital content directly to users around the world.
A52 Adds Wintry Effects to 2006 Lexus IS Spot
For the newest ANY ROAD spot to promote the launch of the 2006 Lexus IS sport sedan, A52 was asked to "winterize" it from beginning to end.
"We have a long history of relying on A52 for complex visual feats," explained Jack Epsteen, exec producer with ad agency Team One, "and in this case, we felt that tapping into the company's artistic expertise to add snow effects to this spot would be an interesting way to back-up the 'Why live in one dimension' tagline. They met the challenge in their typical exemplary style."
BOXX and ProMAX Team Up
ProMAX Systems Inc. and BOXX Technologies Inc. will jointly deliver a broad range of specialized media creation products for film, video and broadcast professionals.
BOXX's, is to rapidly make new performance technologies available to creative professionals to improve the efficiency of their workflow. ProMAX delivers stability, performance and high quality support in advanced integrated video systems.
'Casanova': Digitally Bringing 18th Century Venice to Life
Alain Bielik chats with Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton of Illusion Arts about the invisible VFX for Casanova.
Kong Edges Narnia for Holiday Top Spot
Although Universals KING KONG has not yet turned into the holiday juggernaut that most industry observers predicted, it muscled its way past Buena Vistas THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE to retain its box office lead during the four-day holiday weekend ended Dec. 26, 2005.
January Sees New Shows on TELETOON
TELETOON has a host of new programming to kick off 2006.
Three kids' shows ATOMIC BETTY, FOSTER'S HOME FOR IMAGINARY FRIENDS and THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY will debut new episodes.
Here are some of the stories viewers tuning in to these shows can expect on ...
Jupiterimages Acquires Animation Factory
Jupitermedia Corp. announced that its Jupiterimages division has acquired the assets of Animation Factory Inc., which includes the MediaBuilder Network of websites, (www.animationfactory.com) and (www.mediabuilder.com), from VA Software Corp. for $9.35 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities.
Commercials, Ids & Music Video the Focus of New Acrobat AWM!
For the latest Acrobat version of ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE, which is now online, the theme focuses on commercials, ids and music videos. Rick DeMott for the third year collects the best in animated and visual effects commercials, Ids and music videos in Hot Spots III. John Cawley chronicles the rise of animated virtual band Gorilaz. Karen Raugust looks at how digital video recorders challenge the traditional TV spot, animated and live-action, but also create new advertising opportunities. Joe Strike ventures out to survey the music video scene to see whos animating memorable work.
Toy Story Added to National Film Registry
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced his annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry. This group of titles brings the total number of films placed on the Registry to 425. This year the only animated title to make the list was Pixars TOY STORY.
AWN Discussion Forums - What's New? for December 27, 2005
This week in AWN's Forums, a member says he has no problems with Flash until Another thread wants to know what other members think of animators lack of animation knowledge. In line with the holidays, members are asking what holiday films are members favorites. Another thread is collecting what people got for Christmas. As well as, tools for teaching animation, the business of animation and, as always, brand new stuff to check out in show and tell!