AWN Headline News

After five years in existence, Fox Animation Studios is laying off nearly

70% of its Phoenix-based toon factory's staff. The restructuring of the

animation department will include more contract work outside the studio.

President of animation at Fox, Chris Meledandri said a foundation of 65-100

of the now 320 employees will remain, including, of course, studio staples

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Fox will continue to perform pre-production

work including storyboarding, character design, production design and

Jim Varney, the comic who most recently provided the voice of Slinky Dog in

TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2, died on Thursday, February 10, 2000 at his

Tennessee home of lung cancer. He was 50 years old. Best known for his

Ernest character in commercials, television and films, Varney also provided

voice over work for characters on the THE SIMPSONS. Varney was the star of

several Disney Ernest films, most notably ERNEST GOES TO CAMP and ERNEST

SAVES CHRISTMAS. Doctors diagnosed Varney with cancer in August 1998, and

When the day broke on February 15, 2000, an old man wasn't humdrum about

joining a list of Oscar nominees that included three misses and my

grandmother who irons shirts! The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and

Sciences has released its list of nominations for this year's Oscar

competition. In the category of animated short films the nominees are:

Aardman Animations' Peter Peaks' HUMDRUM; Torril Cove's MY GRANDMOTHER

IRONED THE KING'S SHIRTS; Alexander Petrov's oil paint on glass in IMAX

This week both Corel and Adobe announced that they were adding support for

Macromedia Flash to some of their flagship products. Adobe will be adding

support for Flash to their popular web development tool GoLive, which means

that Adobe users should be able to easily integrate Flash animation into

their existing GoLive projects. Corel also announced that it would be

adding support for Flash to Corel LINUX and CorelDRAW 9. Corel LINUX will

be the first Linux OS to include the Macromedia Flash Player as a standard

CINAR ENTERTAINMENT has filled the newly created seat of president with

PETER MOSS. In his position effective March 1, Moss will focus on

developing CINAR's entertainment business in North America, Latin America

and Asia. Before joining CINAR, Moss served as programming and production

VP for YTV, Canada's youth network. Moss has regularly worked in pre-school

programming with the Children's Television Network and the CBC.

Rumored since last fall, Walt Disney Animation Canada Inc. announced

Monday, February 14, 2000 it will close the doors of its animation studios

in Canada by the spring. Opened in 1996, the Toronto and Vancouver branches

of Walt Disney were created to produce primarily direct-to-home video films

in connection with Walt Disney Television Animation. The company slowly

started winding down production last fall and will completely close around

AtomFilms, a pioneer and leader in next-generation entertainment, announced

that it has entered into an agreement with Blockbuster, the global leader

in rentable home entertainment, for selected, syndicated, short-form,

digital content from AtomFilms to be video streamed on a co-branded section

of blockbuster.com. Beginning Spring 2000 and lasting for 2 years,

AtomFilms will provide both content and streaming-related technologies for

the short-form content component of the Blockbuster Web site. The

CHARLEX, a visual effects post-production house, helped the National

Football League thank their fans with a 60-second spot aired during

American football's biggest game, the Super Bowl. Headed by Alex Weil,

Charlex founder and director, the Charlex artists used a mix of film,

digital effects, graphics and editing to create the look of the "Thank You

2000" spot. The commercial begins on a shadowy checkerboard. Suddenly light

floods into the room as a uniformed football player makes his way to an old

On February 29, 2000, comic book artist Marc Silvestri, creator of

WITCHBLADE, CYBER FORCE and DARKNESS, will be teaching fans and aspiring

artists how it's done through the first semester of on-line classes offered

at Eruptor.com. Silvestri will present a live, three-part series on

Eruptor's Web-based university, Eruptor College, to help students learn how

to produce layouts, refine characters and develop stories for comic books

of their own. The real-time class will allow Silvestri to answer questions

Macromedia, the leading provider of web design tools, recently announced a

major upgrade to its famous FreeHand design and layout software. FreeHand 9

is set to change the way designers approach their work by offering a

powerful toolset for their vector graphics, regardless of whether their art

is intended for print or Web. FreeHand 9 is expected to ship in March on

both Macintosh and Windows platforms, and will be offered as both a

stand-alone product and in the new Macromedia Flash 4 FreeHand 9 Studio,

RING OF FIRE made the crippled walk in Nuveen & Co.'s Super Bowl spot.

Andrew Douglas of SATELLITE was brought in to direct the futuristic spot

where paralyzed actor Christopher Reeve walks to a podium to receive an

award. The super feet was done for Minneapolis, Minnesota-based ad agency

Fallon McElligott. Ring of Fire's founder, Jerry Spivack, served as

creative director and visual effects supervisor for the commercial. Ring of

Fire isn't new to creating outstanding Super Bowl spots, their 1999