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Ontario, Canadas Sheridan College is now offering Writing for Animation through the Program for Continuing Education. The object of this course is to teach the principles of animation writing for short films (both commercial and personal), television series and feature films. Through lectures and guest speakers, group discussions and one-on-one critiques, students will explore such principles as writing for movement, creating believable animated characters -- human, animal and object -- and building a consistent world.

Game publisher NewKidCo International Inc. and Canadian production company CinéGroupe have entered into a long-term strategic alliance to develop titles for Game Boy Advance. The companies plan to launch a minimum of three games per year for three years. While the initial titles will be produced for the Game Boy Advance platform, CinéGroupe president and COO Pierre Bernatchez said the companies expect to expand into developing games for GameCube, PlayStation2 and Xbox.

French producer Alphanim will be bringing several programs from their distribution slate to NATPE 2002 including SPACED OUT (26 x 26'), X-DUCKX (78 x 8'/26 x 26'), ROBOT BOY (52 x 13'), POTATOES & DRAGONS (78 x 8'), DELTA STATE (26 x 26') and RALPH THE RECORD RAT (104 x 1').

Alphanim's Julie Fox visited MILIA 2001 to report on the shifting sands of the Internet animation economy.

A&S Animation, Inc. is presenting their animated short series, TIMMY'S LESSONS IN NATURE at NATPE 2002. In the dialogue-free series, disaster prone Timmy demonstrates basic rules of nature. The one-minute shorts have won awards at six international film festivals including ASIFA-East's Excellence in Writing award.

Activision, Inc. has exercised its option to acquire the remaining 60% equity interest in Gray Matter Interactive Studios. Under the terms of the agreement, Gray Matter Interactive Studios will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. Activision issued 133,690 shares of common stock in connection with the acquisition. "Gray Matter has a very talented team of programmers, designers and artists and we are confident that the studio's development strengths will further establish Activision as a leader in the PC action genre," stated Ron Doornink, president and COO of Activision.

Animated pre-schooler WHY? has been awarded a production loan by the Irish Film Board, who is co-financing the series with Monster Distributes and Brown Bag Films. The new series goes into production in January 2002 and will be presented at NATPE. Monster Distributes will also be introducing new animated Christmas specials, THE LEGEND OF THE CANDY CANE and THE LEGEND OF THE THREE TREES, as well as selling its 13 x 30 award-winning series STORYKEEPERS, directed by Jimmy Murakami. STORYKEEPERS presents stories from the life of Jesus within an adventure story context.