All AWN Content
ASIFA-Hollywood's Life Drawing Workshop
ASIFA-Hollywood and Glendale Community College are offering life-drawing workshops. The workshop offers live models in pose from one to fifteen minutes in duration, about forty poses per session. Professional assistance is available from the workshop supervisor. The classes run Wednesdays from 7 to 10 pm. The price is US$10 for the public and $7 for ASIFA-Hollywood members.
Dino Soars To The Top Of US Box Office
Proving the further back in history movies go the more money they make, Disneys DINOSAUR stepped over the two week champion GLADIATOR. The nine-digit price-tagged prehistoric epic grossed US$38.85 million. DreamWorks GLADIATOR dazzled audiences to the tune of another $19.75 million. The Roman romp in only three weeks of release has made a total of $103.1 million. Slipping a spot to #4, U-571 grossed an additional $4.64 million. The Universal U-boat adventure has made $64.39 million thus far in the U.S. New Lines FREQUENCY dropped to 5th place making $4.34 million.
Gladiator Slays The International Box Office
For the week ending May 21, GLADIATOR still reigned in the U.K. and Australia and conquered new territory in Italy. By more than doubling the debut of FINAL DESTINATION, the DreamWorks colossal hit grossed another US$5.11 million in the U.K. The world champ has garnered $13.96 million on the British Isle. More than tripling the second placed newcomer ROMEO MUST DIE, the Roman ruler grossed $3.32 million in Australia, raising its cume in that country to $7.79 million. In its Italian premiere, the maker of Maximus coin landed $1.89 million.
41st Annual Clio Awards
The Clio Awards honor advertising excellence worldwide. They welcome entries from professionals and students interested in advertising arts. All Print and Poster entries must have appeared in newspapers or magazines, or be posted on billboards or public sites. All TV & Radio entries must have been broadcast or appeared in movie theaters. All Interactive entries must be in English, or sent with an exact written English translation.
Cinar Sued By HighReach
The former owners of Cinars subsidiary, HighReach Learning, Inc., have filed a lawsuit against the parent company to recover alleged losses related to a stock purchase agreement concluded with Cinar as part of the purchase price of HighReach in 1998. The complaint contains allegations that Cinar is liable for losses in stock due to the ongoing investigation into their alleged fraudulent actions. "These legal proceedings pertain to circumstances surrounding the stock purchase agreement negotiated between Cinar and the former owners of HighReach Learning in 1998.
Pinky & The Brain Take Over The Daytime Emmys
On Friday, May 19, 2000, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences bestowed the honor of outstanding childrens animated program on STEVEN SPIELBERG PRESENTS: PINKY, ELMYRA AND THE BRAIN. The toons left in their wake were ARTHUR, DISNEYS DOUG, MAURICE SENDAKS LITTLE BEAR and THE NEW BATMAN/SUPERMAN ADVENTURES. SESAME STREET beat out BLUES CLUES in the category of outstanding pre-school series. Other animated winners were given out on Saturday, May 13 at the technical achievement ceremony. ROLIE POLIE OLIE won the award for outstanding special class animated program.
Harvey Hatches Better Results For 1st Quarter
The Harvey Entertainment Company announced that its first quarter income has improved nearly 25% over last years results. Net operating revenues improved to US$882,000 in the first quarter of 2000, compared to $562,000 in 1999. Harvey saw a reduced loss from operations of $598,000 in the first quarter of 2000, compared to a loss of $2,412,000 a year ago. These figures do not include the CASPER owners recent purchase of PM Entertainment.
Pokemon Pumps Up European Deals
Pokemon has caught new deals with several eastern European countries and renewals from around the rest of the continent. New locations of Pokemon infestation include Polsat in Poland, RTL-Klub in Hungary, Nova in Czech Republic, ETV in South Africa and Fox Kids Scandinavia Satelite service. The countries that renewed the second seasons 52-episodes were TV2 in Denmark, TV2 in Norway, TV4 in Sweden, Star Channel in Greece and RTL in Belgium.
VanHook Ventures On Cyberspace
VanHook Studios, a Hollywood-based effects and animation house, has ventured into cyberspace with a new episodic program for whatsonweb.com. VanHook has worked on the visual effects for such features as MY FAVORITE MARTIAN and 13TH WARRIOR and TV series ALLY MCBEAL, ZENA, HERCULES and MAX STEEL. The first series to hit whatsonweb.com will be the fantasy series KIRA: THE CURSED, staring adult film star Kylie Ireland. "Kylie is a great choice for us. Not only is she a wonderful actress, with great screen presence she also has an enormous and incredibly loyal fanbase.
First Bristol Animated Encounters
A weekend of animation is coming to Bristol and the home town toon house Aardman Animations' will open the first Bristol Animated Encounters with a sneak peak of the animated feature film, CHICKEN RUN. Animated Encounters is supported by DreamWorks SKG, Torribles, Aardman Animations, WESTEC, BBC Bristol, Bristol City Council, Bristol Tourism and Conference Bureau, A for Animation and Farrington Lewis.
The American Digital Arts Festival
The American Digital Arts Festival is accepting entries in the following categories: Digital Filmmaking, Filmmaking w/ Digital Special Effects, Computer Animation, Digital Music, Digital Photography, Enhanced Scanned Photography, Digital Painting and Digital Graphics. Also, for youth age 17 & under, the festival presents The Digital Kids Fest as part of its program. Prizes are being furnished by Adobe, Deep Paint and MGI Software. The organization is also introducing a newway to self-distribute indie features or short films on line with www.IndieXtreme.com.
First Annual Amazing Kids! Animation Contest
The First Annual Amazing Kids! Animation Contest will give young animators a chance to be mentored by professional animators from DreamWorks Animation. The contest is part of a partnership between Amazing Kids!, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring excellence in children, and DreamWorks Animation. The event is hosted on the Amazing Kids! Web site and is open for kids 6-17 years old. As part of the contest, DreamWorks is providing original content for the Amazing Kids! Web site, including animation lessons for kids taught by DreamWorks animators.
Plympton's Comic Of The Week
Plympton's new series of comics extracted from the comic book,
"Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton," is for ADULTS ONLY...
This Week's Animation Trivia Quiz
Test your skills and challenge your brain with AWN's
Quiz. This week, we're asking questions about stop-motion and puppet
animators. Which English puppet animator was replaced by computer
animation folks on Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!?" Which Czech animator
began drawing films but ended up working with puppets? Which video
did Disney recall because a cameraman had inserted a few frames of a
Store Specials: Contemporary Estonian Animation, Volume 4: Joonisfilm Studio
This volume provides a survey of films made at Joonisfilm Studio
since Estonia's independence. Included: "Viola" (Grand Prize, 2000
Nordic and Baltic Animation Festival), "On the Possibility of Love"
(Grand Prize, Brisbane Animation Festival), "Bermuda" (Director's
Prize, Ottawa International Student Animation Festival), "Birthday,"
"Departure," "Gravitation," "Jaagup and Death," and two Estonian
films made at Finland's Turku Arts Academy: "Cappuccino" and
A Closer Look: CreativePlanet.com, A Cutting-edge Portal
Creative Planet, AWN's parent company, has launched the beta version
of the new CreativePlanet.com, a cutting-edge portal for
entertainment industry professionals...
Call, Macaluso Promoted At Digital Domain
Special effects facility Digital Domain has promoted Senior VP C. Bradley Call to head of business development and chief administrative officer and Yvette Macaluso to VP finance. As the company's new #2 man, Call will continue as general counsel, but will help expand Digital Domain's feature development arm. Call will now head the effects houses human resources and purchasing departments. With the company from its inception 7 years ago, Maculas has managed the finance and accounting departments.
AWN Readers Can Save 25% Off Their Registration Fees For WAC
IPnetwork.com is one of the 100 most influential companies on the
Internet who will join forces with the most influential people in
animation at the World Animation Celebration...
Former TriStar Chairman Joins Film Roman Board
Former TriStar Pictures chairman Mike Medavoy has joined the board of directors of Film Roman. The current head of Phoenix Pictures, Medavoy becomes the sixth member of Film Roman's board. Film Roman president John Hyde said Medavoy's appointment would serve to "complement" the company's business plan rather than change it. Film Roman, which produces animation for TV (SIMPSONS, KING OF THE HILL), expanded its operations in 1998 to include limited development and production of feature-length films and recently increased its commercial output.
The Acrobat Issue of Animation World Magazine Is Now On-line!
Stuart Little’s Dykstra Swings With Spider-Man
Visual effects pioneer John Dykstra has swung onto the SPIDER-MAN project. The new project will reunite Dykstra with the effects team from Sony Imageworks, where he was recently special effects supervisor on STUART LITTLE. The Sam Raimi directed flick has also hired former PDI character animator Karen Goulekas. Dykstra told the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER that he doesn't know how many effects there will be yet, because the script (by Raimi and David Koepp) isn't done. "We're still sorting the character out.
New Jobs: Animators, Digital Artists, Directors and More...
The Animation Academy, an in-house trade school owned by Animatrix
Productions, is looking for a 2D ANIMATION INSTRUCTOR teaching basic
animation, storyboards, character creation and layout/design. . . San
Francisco and New York City-based One Infinity Inc., a streaming
media development company, is looking for a 2D BACKGROUND
ILLUSTRATOR, a 2D FLASH ANIMATOR and a 2D FLASH LIP-SYNCHER for an
animated Flash hip-hop music video. . . West Los Angeles,
South Park Is iN DEMAND
Comedy Central and iN DEMAND have struck a deal that will provide 25 episodes of SOUTH PARK on a pay-per-view basis. IN DEMAND executive VP entertainment Mark Sonnenberg said that the pact illustrates that video-on-demand is vibrant. "It's not just movies," Sonnenberg said. "It's everything consumers want -- movies, library products, TV series, local programming." Both companies plan to work together in the future to bring other Comedy Central content to PPV, like uncut stand-up shows.
Flash! Anima Mundi Wants Web Toons
Anima Mundi Web is Brazil's international animation Web competition.
The event is open to all countries and work must be in Flash and gif
formats. The festival will pre-select 20 animations and an
international jury will vote for the winners. The international jury
will consist of the people that have registered on the Anima Mundi
Festival Web site. The deadline for entries is June 1, 2000. The
winners will be announced on the closing night of the Anima Mundi