AWN Headline News

SONY PICTURES FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT GROUP has appointed five key developmentexecutives. BOB HIGGINS has been promoted to Senior Vice President ofCreative Affairs; STACEY ATTANASIO has been named Senior Vice President ofProduction; JOE D'AMBROSIA has been named Executive Director of CreativeAffairs; TARA POLACIK has been promoted to Director of Creative Affairs andGRACE BENN has been named Creative Executive. Prior to his new appointment,BOB HIGGINS served as Vice President of Creative Affairs for Columbia

MILIA 2000, the World's Interactive Content Marketplace, will take placeFebruary 14-18, 2000 in Cannes, France. The sixth edition of the MILIA d'OrAwards - The World's Interactive Content Awards will be sponsored for thesecond consecutive year by DVD FORUM, an international associationdedicated to developing DVD formats and promoting its broad acceptance.Awards categories include interactive (games, family entertainment andlearning), as well as Interactive TV, e-commerce and online entertainment.

Sausalito, California-based Puffin Designs has announced Commotion DV, aprofessional image editing and effects program for digital video artists.Commotion DV is ideal for creating original stylized motion graphics andfixing image problems such as video dropouts. The SuperClone brush allowsusers to move and duplicate objects such as mountains, trees or clouds tocreate just the right background; fill in crowd scenes; or remove visualdistractions such as power lines or a wayward microphone. Playback controls

Some fans, who are still shaking their heads over the poor boxoffice performance of the critically acclaimed THE IRON GIANT, director Brad Bird's adaptation of the children's book by British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, have suggested that Warner Bros. should re-vamp their publicity campaign for the film by targeting a larger audience than the young kids that were originally targeted, and re-release THE IRON GIANT theatrically. Such a scenario appears unlikely now that Warner Home Video has announced THE IRON GIANT for home video and DVD.

Craig Miller and Marv Wolfman, who created and produced POCKET DRAGON ADVENTURES, are offering THINKING VISUALLY: HOW TO WRITE FOR TV ANIMATION, a single session class at The Learning Annex in Los Angeles. Topics to be covered include what's required to break in; what extra things you need to think of when writing animation; writing the premise, outline, and script; writing with your intended viewers in mind; working with story editors; and humor and action, how far can you go. Handouts will include a sample story premise, outline, and script.

San Francisco, California-based Mondo Media, Inc. has announced a one-year deal with Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online, Inc., to provide Netscape's Netcenter Web site with two weekly animated shows which will be presented under the banner of MONDO MINI SHOWS. LIKE, NEWS is written and directed by Don Asmussen, a regular cartoonist for TIME and GEORGE magazines, and features a sarcastic teenager with a nose ring who "interviews" newsmakers such as Saddam Hussein and Al Gore.

Montreal, Canada-based Toon Boom Technologies Inc. is now shipping version 2.3 of TicTacToon. Some of the features included on this new version are the ability to: customize and modify the aspect ratio of each scene at any stage of production; work on up to three levels of animation simultaneously; drag and drop entire columns of drawings with their cel names and timing to and from the Animation and Exposure Sheet modules; make order and timing changes quickly in either module through insert, replace or append options; and draw paintable rectangular zones to close outer edges of any drawing.

Italy, Rome-based Digital Video S.R.L. has announced Toonz version 4.3,which provides 2D users with new tools to be more creative and efficient ontheir job. The digital exposure sheet is much more user friendly, includingmany new special effects, complete keyframe capabilities on all parameters,and enlarged number of mathematical expressions for more controllablemotion. Enhancements of display features include icons in the level headerarea for quick reference of elements. Texture mapping has been strengthened

Westbury, New York-based American Royal Arts Corp., an animation artdealer, has been licensed by Apple and Signatures to produce hand paintedlimited edition cels and sericels featuring The Beatles from YELLOWSUBMARINE. The artwork will be signed by some of the same people who wereresponsible for making the original film, including the composer, SirGeorge Martin, the producer and co-author, Al Brodax, and Erich Segal,co-author of the original YELLOW SUBMARINE screenplay and Ringo Starr, the

London, UK-based RICHARD PURDUM PRODUCTIONS has completed three spots forNestle Polo mints. In "Aliens," which was designed by Robin Heighway Bury,the mint is chased by aliens. In "Cement," which was designed by John PaulEarly, the Polo mint is hounded by a mob, and in "Beach," which wasdesigned by Adrian Johnson, the mint is chased by muscle men into a ladies'changing room. The three designers brought their individual styles to eachof the spots, which were all directed by Richard Purdum for agency J.Walter Thompson.

The Harvey Entertainment Company has selected New York-based Xceed, Inc., amarketing and communications company that specializes in interactiveservices, to develop a family oriented portal to exploit Harvey's brands onthe Web. Harvey Entertainment owns the rights to an extensive list ofwell-known cartoon characters, including Casper, the Friendly Ghost, RichieRich, Baby Huey, Wendy the Witch and Hot Stuff. Potential programming forthe portal include Harvey's classic animation library, stories from Harvey

The Giant Screen Theater Association (GSTA) Annual Meeting. Mark Osborne'sMORE, the experimental large format short film sponsored by the LargeFormat Cinema Association (LFCA) and nominated for a 1998 Academy Award,will be one of the New Film presentations. The New Film screenings at GSTAwill give operators of institutional and commercial large format theatersthe opportunity to consider the film for their venues. The event takesplace Saturday, September 11 - Wednesday, September 15 in New York, New