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This week's updates to the Calendar of Events includes:ASIFA-Hollywood Presents: DePatie-Freleng - The Early Films,Wednesday, May 23, 2001, Burbank, California, U.S.A.; ASIFA-HollywoodPresents: Hollywood Cartoons In Technicolor!, Wednesday, May 30,2001, Burbank, California, U.S.A.; ASIFA-Hollywood Presents: Sex WarsIn Animation, 1926 - 1950, Friday, June 1, 2001, Burbank, California,U.S.A.; ChildArt And Creativity Festival, Friday, June 29 -Wednesday, July 4, 2001, Washington, DC, U.S.A.; Sentiero Corto

DreamWorks' new CG-animated film SHREK rocketed to #1 at the box office in its North American debut, taking in $42.1 million. It is the second-biggest opening for an animated film and the biggest-ever for the distributor. Buena Vista's TOY STORY 2, which debuted during the Thanksgiving holiday in 1999, holds the record for animated openings with $57.4 million, while the previous biggest opening for DreamWorks was GLADIATOR with $34.8 million in May 2000. Universal's THE MUMMY RETURNS tallied $20.5 million during its third weekend to hold second place.

IMAX announced the appointment of Francis (Frank) T. Joyce as chief financial officer effective May 14, 2001. Joyce will report to IMAX co-CEOs and co-chairmen Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler. Joyce comes to IMAX from theglobe.com where he was vice president, CFO and treasurer. He has more than 20 years of experience in finance, primarily in the advertising, film, publishing and Internet industries, and has worked for a number of large multi-national companies including CBS, Paramount Pictures, Ted Bates Worldwide and KPMG.

Sideshow Post announced that award-winning computer graphics artist Jonathan Herbert has joined the company's Sideshow Motion Design division as creative director. Herbert comes on board after seven years at the helm of Zero Degrees Kelvin, his well-known New York City production boutique that specialized in 3D animation for TV commercials, product and science demos. Herbert has seventeen years experience in directing and managing 3D and special effects projects.

Visual effects studio Rhinoceros Effects has recently finished a new spot for health insurance group Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield and agency Gotham Inc. Titled Beacon, the spot combines photo-realistic CG with live-action camera moves. The Beacon butterflies that star in the spot required deep work in CG, but shooting the live materials was also very important, said director Harry Dorrington. We shot the room using very slow moves, as well as capturing light sources and background textures.

Gnomon School of Visual Effects has announced the launch of Gnomon Online, a Web-based service structured to offer high-quality training in Alias|Wavefront Maya on the Internet. Paid membership will allow viewing of streaming-video tutorials in seven application areas. Gnomon Online membership is $49 per month and gives members access to a growing library of streaming-video tutorials and scene files. The service is going online with an initial three hours and twenty minutes of tutorials.

If you thought Sugar Ray was already a pretty animated band, wait until you see them at CartoonNetwork.com. The Website introduces an innovative extension to its Web Premiere Toons franchise when it premieres an animated music video starring the Lava/Atlantic recording group. The band has been working with Cartoon Network Online to create and produce a video based on their new hit single, WHEN IT'S OVER, from their forthcoming self-titled album, set for release on June 12, 2001. The animated video will premiere exclusively at CartoonNetwork.com on June 4, 2001.

Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., has formed a strategic development relationship with Microsoft Corporation to provide professional 3D art tools for modeling and animation for the Xbox video game system. Through this agreement, SOFTIMAGE|XSI animation software and SOFTIMAGE|RTK character middleware will support the creation of Xbox-specific content. "The stunning graphics performance of Xbox is powered by the NVIDIA graphics processing unit (Xbox GPU).