Rick DeMott's Recent Posts

Denmark-based A. FILM has rapped on a 35-second commercial for Kellogg's

Cereal. The spot was directed by Craig Frank and produced for the Leo

Burnett agency. The classic 2D animation spot launches a new image campaign

introducing Kellogg's Town, where 8 popular Kellogg's figures like

Cornelius, Tony the Tiger, Coco, Chocos, Loopy, Snap, Crackle and Pop live.

The spot will air in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.

RING OF FIRE roasts with two new spots for the Washington Apple Commission.

Produced for Seattle-based agency McCann Erickson, the 30-second

commercials highlight the heroic deeds of Apple Guy. In "Car Trip," Apple

Guy revives a family of four with apples before they drive their car off

the road. In "Hikers," Apple Guy rescues two campers from a crumbling rope

bridge. To keep the fast pace of the spots up, Ring of Fire used a blurring

technique they call "snap zoom morph" to transition from various shots

LUCAS LICENSING has appointed KERRY PHELAN in the new executive position of

director of domestic licensing & marketing. In her new role, Phelan will

oversee all aspects of the Star Wars licensing business for the U.S. Before

coming to Lucas Licensing, she was a long time marketing executive at LEGO

toys, where she was responsible for developing the LEGO brand among young

families. "The Star Wars licensing program has always been about creating

* Tuesday, February 22, 2000. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Come hear from the team of Fox's FUTURAMA at the AFI's Writers' POV. In

past years, AFI has featured the writing teams from THE SIMPSONS and KING

OF THE HILL, who gave a Writers POV on the making of an animated series.

Continuing this popular topic, AFI has invited the FUTURAMA team to

participate in this question & answer event. Guests will include: executive

producer David X. Cohen, and writers Ken Keeler, Eric Horsted, Lewis

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.