Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has commissioned Ella Louise Allaire and Martin Lord Ferguson of Montreal-based production company Monlove (Cirque du Soleil’s Kà and Zed, The Nut Job Live & Friends, Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure) to create All Systems Are Go, an original live, immersive educational entertainment experience to be presented at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Targeted to launch for spring 2023, it will feature beloved Peanuts characters including Snoopy, Woodstock, Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus, Lucy, Franklin and Schroeder.
“We are over the Moon at the opportunity to work with Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and Peanuts Worldwide on this project to conceive a world-class experience that will both entertain and educate the audience about what NASA has achieved and will pursue in the future,” commented Allaire and Ferguson. “The creative potential for telling this larger-than-life story through the eyes of the fabled Peanuts characters is as vast and exciting as space itself.”
Monlove is transforming the visitor complex’s 300-seat Universe Theater for All Systems Are Go with Dolby Atmos sound, motorized scrims and more than 20 integrated laser projectors to enhance the project’s high-end immersive edutainment experience. The original orchestral score composed by Allaire and Ferguson will offer music in an eclectic mix of orchestral, contemporary and jazz styles. Using augmented reality interactive technology, audience members will be able to use their smartphones to scan the environment to discover space elements and a music sequence.
“Peanuts has had a long association with space, starting with NASA’s Apollo 10 mission in the 1960s to Snoopy being the zero-gravity indicator on the upcoming launch of Artemis I,” noted Craig Herman, Vice President, Global Brand Experiences & Publishing, Peanuts Worldwide. “This joint effort between Monlove, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and Peanuts Worldwide is a fantastic avenue for fans to learn about Peanuts and NASA’s storied history as well as experience Charles Schulz’s iconic characters in a new and exciting way.”
All Systems Are Go
The 20-minute experience, included with admission and offered daily, will feature the Peanuts gang appearing as four to five-foot-tall articulated characters operated by puppeteers. The characters will narrate the iconic history of NASA, the Artemis missions and future plans in an educational and imaginatively enlightening way for the whole family. NASA’s Artemis missions will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon.
Therrin Protze, Chief Operating Officer at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Monlove to bring the world’s most beloved Peanuts characters to the stage in All Systems Are Go at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Guests of all ages will love the experience from start to finish.”
Allaire and Ferguson will act respectively as creators of the experience’s original concept, story and music as well as executive producers for this new project. The collaboration is Monlove’s first association with Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and Peanuts Worldwide, and follows two successful associations with Warner Bros. Themed Entertainment, featuring the recent live stage show Scooby-Doo! and the Lost City of Gold and the upcoming fall 2023 live theatrical and musical stage show with the internationally recognized Looney Tunes characters.
Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5.1 is available today, building upon the groundbreaking feature set introduced in UE5 to enable even easier and faster 3D content creation. A range of stress-tested new features and improvements in 5.1 make Unreal even more robust, efficient and versatile for creators across all industries.
Unreal Engine usage in animation has grown exponentially, from 15 productions between 2015 and 2019 to over 160 productions from 2020 to 2022. For professionals working with animated content, particularly characters, Unreal Engine 5.1 offers several notable advancements to the engine’s built-in animation and rigging tools, as well as Sequencer.
Now in Beta, the Machine Learning Deformer generates high-fidelity approximations of nonlinear deformers, complex proprietary rigs, or any arbitrary deformation by using a custom Maya plugin to train a machine learning model, which in turn runs in real time in Unreal Engine. This enables users to simulate film-quality deformations, such as flexing muscles, bulging veins, and sliding skin. Other character deformation improvements include enhancements to the Deformer Graph Editor for easier graph creation and editing.
Control Rig continues to expand toward fully procedural rigging, increasing the impact and scalability of rigging teams. Updates to the core framework include a new Construction Event that lets users generate rig hierarchies via a graph, and Custom User Events for creating and triggering rig events such as “Snap FK to IK.” With these updates, artists can create a single Control Rig asset that can build itself to fit characters that may have different skeletal proportions and properties — for example, the same Control Rig can adapt itself to a three-fingered monster or a five-fingered human without any changes to the rig asset.
UE 5.1 also adds support for constraints in Sequencer — the engine’s multi-track nonlinear animation editor — including Position, Rotation and Look-at. Users can leverage these to quickly and easily create and animate relationships between any Control Rig or Actors, for example, making a camera always follow a character; keeping a character’s hands on a steering wheel; animating a clown juggling balls; or constraining a cowboy’s hips so that he sits naturally in the saddle as the horse moves, while his hands hold the reins.
Sequencer also sees additional functionality exposed through Blueprint and Python scripting, and a refactored UI/UX for increased stability and extensibility, and to improve animation authoring and editing workflows.
In-Camera VFX Editor (Unreal Engine 5.1)
In-Camera Visual Effects
Unreal Engine has now been used on over 425 film and TV productions, and is integrated into over 300 virtual production stages worldwide. With improvements in Unreal Engine 5.1 specifically tailored to virtual production workflows, technicians and artists now have multiple benefits, including a dedicated In-Camera VFX Editor, improved Light Card system, improved Remote Control APIs, expanded color correction tools, initial Lumen support for nDisplay and more.
First, LED stage operators can now take advantage of a new dedicated In-Camera VFX Editor that supports a range of virtual production workflows. This largely eliminates the need for stage operators to hunt through the Outliner for specific objects and controls. UE 5.1 also adds UI, UX and performance improvements for the Remote Control APIs, enabling users to construct powerful custom browser-based remote controls more quickly and easily.
The ICVFX Editor also hosts an interface to an improved Light Card system that displays as a preview of the nDisplay wall. As well as making it intuitive and efficient to create, move, and edit light cards and save templates, the new light cards can retain their shape on the wall, eliminating distortion.
Also new in the ICVFX Editor are Color Correction Windows (CCWs) that enable color adjustments to be applied exclusively to anything behind them (similar to Power Windows in color grading applications), together with the ability to apply color corrections per Actor, which reduces the need for complex masking.
Virtual Camera (Unreal Engine 5.1)
The new Media Plate Actor enables OpenEXR support, enabling users to simply drag and drop footage from the Content Browser. In addition, users can now play back mipmapped and tiled uncompressed EXRs both in engine and with nDisplay with the appropriate SSD RAID, and now have the ability to convert EXRs to the correct format for optimum playback.
Furthermore, Unreal Engine’s virtual camera system has been overhauled with a new underlying framework that utilizes Epic’s Pixel Streaming technology for improved responsiveness and reliability, and an updated UI with a modern camera-focused design that will be more familiar to camera operators. Users also now have the ability to connect hardware devices, and will be able to customize the UI in the future.
Lumen, UE’s fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system, now offers initial support for nDisplay in 5.1, provided the number of lights is modest (about five to seven lights total, depending on graphics card). With Lumen, indirect lighting adapts on the fly with changes to the sun’s angle, lights or position bounce cards, for example. Previously, these changes would have required a baking step that could pause production, interrupting the creative flow.
UE 5.1 also adds improvements to GPU Lightmass, including support for Sky Atmosphere, stationary Sky Lights, light features such as IES profiles and Rect Light textures, and improved quality and performance across the board.
Lumen 60fps (Unreal Engine 5.1)
Games
As over half of all announced next-gen games are being created with Unreal Engine, developers can now take advantage of updates to the Lumen dynamic global illumination and reflections system, the Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry system and Virtual Shadow Maps that lay the groundwork for games and experiences running at 60 frames per second on next-gen consoles and capable PCs. These improvements will enable fast-paced competition and detailed simulations without latency.
Additionally, Nanite has also added a Programmable Rasterizer to allow for material-driven animations and deformations via World Position Offset, as well as opacity masks. This exciting development paves the way for artists to use Nanite to program specific objects’ behavior, for example Nanite-based foliage with leaves blowing in the wind.
UE 5.1 also adds several features to improve efficiency for developers of games and other large-scale interactive projects, helping teams be more productive. For instance, Virtual Assets decouple the metadata from the object data, enabling developers to sync only what they need from source control systems such as Perforce — resulting in smaller workspaces and faster syncs for developers who don’t need access to the full object data. The new automated Pipeline State Object (PSO) caching for DX12 simplifies the process needed to prepare a game for shipping in DX12. And lastly, on-demand shader compilation compiles only the shaders needed to render what is seen on screen while working in the Unreal Editor, which can result in significant time savings and increased interactivity.
For developers building massive open worlds, this release also delivers additional functionality and improved workflows. World Partition now supports Large World Coordinates, enabling the creation of massive open worlds without loss of precision. Users can also enjoy accelerated source control workflows with World Partition, thanks to an improved user experience around managing, filtering, searching and viewing files and changelists. It’s also now easier to find content in the world from within your changelists, and vice versa. In addition, new HLOD (Hierarchical Level of Detail) support for water rendering and streaming enables users to create large water bodies in open worlds with better performance and a smaller memory footprint.
Hierarchical Level of Detail support for water (Unreal Engine 5.1)
Tickets are now on sale for Walt Disney Animation Studios’ original action-packed adventure Strange World, following in the Thanksgiving big screen release footsteps of favorites like Moana (2016), Frozen II (2019) and last year’s Oscar winner Encanto. Moviegoerscan see the studio’s latest animated epic exclusively in theaters starting November 23.
Strange World introduces a legendary family of explorers, the Clades, as they attempt to navigate an uncharted, treacherous land alongside a motley crew and a slew of ravenous creatures.
To celebrate the ticketing kick off, a new clip is now availablefeaturing the Clade family’s three-legged, perpetually happy dog, Legend, who would do anything for his humans and a blue blobby creature they call Splat.
https://youtu.be/pONB_T0-6QQ
The voice cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal as Searcher Clade, a family man who finds himself out of his element on an unpredictable mission; Dennis Quaid as Searcher’s larger-than-life explorer father, Jaeger; Jaboukie Young-White as Searcher’s 16-year-old son, Ethan, who longs for adventure; Gabrielle Union as Meridian Clade, an accomplished pilot and Searcher’s partner in all things; and Lucy Liu as Callisto Mal, Avalonia’s fearless leader who spearheads the exploration into the strange world.
The film is helmed by director Don Hall and co-director/writer Qui Nguyen, and produced by Roy Conli.
Catwoman is sneaking her way onto Batwheels this month, and today, Cartoonito’s newest preschool series released a new clip of the stealthy Batman anti-hero voiced by Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez — on the prowl in Gotham City. The upcoming episode, “Rev and Let Rev,” will premiere Monday, November 21 at 10 a.m. on Cartoon Network’s Cartoonito block and stream next day on the Cartoonito hub on HBO Max.
Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, Batwheels marks DC’s first-ever Batman preschool series. The show follows a group of young sentient super-powered vehicles as they defend Gotham City alongside Batman, Robin, and Batgirl. In addition to featuring the first onscreen portrayal of Duke Thomas, the first Black character to don the Robin “R” in the pages of DC comics, the series also introduces preschoolers to a Latina iteration of Selina Kyle as Catwoman.
In “Rev and Let Rev,” Catwoman (Rodriguez) tries to evade Robin (AJ Hudson) and his sports car, Redbird (Jordan Reed), while attempting to get her claws on one of the shiniest trinkets in Gotham City. During the cat chase, Redbird learns that his new muffler modifications may not be the best for catching such an elusive adversary.
The all-star voice cast also includes Ethan Hawke as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jacob Bertrand as Bam, Xolo Maridueña as Snowy, Madigan Kacmar as Bibi, Noah Bentley as Buff, Lilimar as Batwing, Kimberly D. Brooks as The Batcomputer, Mick Wingert as Moe and The Joker, Leah Lewis as Cassandra Cain/Batgirl, Griffin Burns as Prank, Alexandra Novelle as Jetstah, Josey Montana McCoy as Quizz, Ariyan Kassam as Ducky, SungWon Cho as Badcomputer and The Riddler, Tom Kenny as Crash, Chandni Parekh as Harley Quinn, Jess Harnell as The Penguin, Regi Davis as Mr. Freeze and James Arnold Taylor as Toyman.
Underneath the superhero adventures, Batwheels teaches children about what it means to be a hero through its unique “Hero” curriculum, aligned with Cartoonito’s Humancentric Learning framework. Every episode demonstrates a different character strength — self-awareness, concern for others, perseverance and courage, among others — in overcoming personal and interpersonal challenges and will model how heroes contribute to the greater good.
Sam Register (Looney Tunes Cartoons) serves as executive producer. Michael G. Stern (Doc McStuffins) serves as co-executive producer, Simon J. Smith (Penguins of Madagascar) is supervising producer and Steven Fink of Bang Zoom Ltd. is the producer. Based on characters from DC, Batwheelsis produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Animation services provided by Superprod Studio.
After a two-year COVID hiatus, the Animation Show of Shows returns to theaters and campuses across North America this fall. This 22nd edition comprises 10 films — nine recent creations from Asia, Europe and North America, along with one restored classic — which the organizers note deal with both the anxieties and hopes of a world faced with a seemingly endless series of existential crises, each inventive and unique in tone and technique.
“Animation is a natural medium for dealing with abstract ideas and deeply felt concerns, and the Animation Show of Shows has always strived to scour the world for the most affecting and engaging films,” says founder and curator Ron Diamond. “While the recent films were conceived and some finished, before the COVID lockdowns, all but the most abstract display a concern with the ways in which we are all interconnected … or sadly alienated from our sense of human connection.”
This general issue appears in many forms and styles: While Beyond Noh cleverly shows the prevalence of masks through all cultures and Rain humorously explores the dangers of groupthink, Ties takes the notion of connectedness from the metaphorical to the actual.
Animation Show of Shows 2022:
Beyond Noh
Beyond Noh — Patrick Smith/Kaori Ishida (U.S./Japan)
Set to a driving percussive score, Beyond Noh rhythmically shows us 3475 masks in under four minutes, creating a constantly mutating, almost dancing image — moving from Japanese Noh masks to a variety of tribal ritual masks and on to every possible Halloween mask, from Guy Fawkes to Marvel Comics to the Simpsons.
Empty Places
Empty Places — Geoffroy de Crecy (France)
A record player repeatedly plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Elevator doors open and close. A luggage carousel goes round and round, a machine spits out tennis balls, a train mindlessly continues its route. But there is no one to pick up the bags, to hit the balls, to ride the train. It is as though everyone in the world has suddenly vanished without explanation, leaving our objects to futilely serve a non-existent populace. De Crecy describes his film as “an ode to the melancholy of machines.”
Good and Better
Beseder (Good and Better) — Gil Alkabetz (Germany)
Alkabetz presents us with a series of surreal vignettes, invoking famous works by Picasso, Dali, Magritte, Duchamp and Saul Steinberg. Many involve distortions of the human form, in the manner of Bill Plympton; the result is unsettling (even when funny), bemoaning the human tendency toward pessimism. “So hard to think it’s gonna be good and better. It’s too complicated. So easy to think it’s gonna be bad and worse.”
Zoizoglyphe
Zoizoglyphe — Jeanne Apergis (France)
In this hand-drawn debut film from next-gener Apergis (born in 2000), little bird-like figures pop up on screen. They organize themselves into phalanxes; one outlier joins them, setting off a chain reaction that drives them across the screen. Their movements generate the soundtrack. As they cascade, there is the illusion of watching an optical representation of the sound.
Rain
Rain (Deszcz) — Piotr Milczarek (Poland)
A man stands on the roof of an impossibly tall skyscraper, having a smoke. Someone playfully sneaks up behind him, so startling him that he falls off the roof. The company CEO, sitting in his office, is the first to see the body dropping past his window. He leaps up, grabs a cape and flies to the rescue. Other employees, seeing the rescue, gather on the roof and start jumping themselves. Groupthink? A new ice-bucket challenge? Digging the thrill? Dozens jump — the CEO, exhausted, gives up as more bodies fly by the windows.
Average Happiness
Average Happiness — Maja Gehrig (Switzerland)
A statistics professor is delivering a very dry lecture using “average happiness” as an example. It’s so dry that the graphs he’s explaining seem to get bored. They mutate themselves into stark images, flowing and overlapping, exuberant and colorful, although the subject matter they represent — energy usage, mortality rates, war — is often downbeat. Working from found footage, director Maja Gehrig alternately connects and disconnects the images from the real-world aspects they are meant to convey.
Aurora
Aurora — Jo Meuris (U.S.)
Jojo is a pig-tailed little girl who falls in love with a horse named Aurora. When Aurora moves away, Jojo’s heart is broken. But, after a while, another horse comes into her life, and, while he’s definitely not Aurora, the girl comes to love him, and her heart begins to heal.
Yes-People
Yes-People — Gísli Darri Halldórsson (Iceland)
In this Oscar-nominated short, Halldórsson presents a day in the life of the residents of an apartment building, as they wordlessly go about their business…. or almost wordlessly: the one word we hear repeatedly is “Ja” (yes). A music teacher sends her son off to school (where he daydreams) and gives a lesson to an apparently hopeless flautist; the super shovels the sidewalk and happily returns to his libidinous wife; a bureaucrat goes to his office, leaving his frustrated wife to drink away her loneliness.
Ties
Ties — Dina Velikovskaya (Germany/Russia)
As a young woman leaves for college, a thread from her skirt gets caught on her old swing. When she walks to the waiting cab, her skirt doesn’t unravel, but the swing does. All the lines that compose the swing pull away until it collapses. But it doesn’t stop there: apparently, all the objects we’ve seen — the house, the yard, even her parents — are connected lines of the same thread. As she gets on a plane and flies away, the contents of her home, then the building itself, and finally even her father all come unraveled. Only the actions of her mom are able to break the thread and stop this wholesale destruction, and even reconstruct her husband out of the jumble of thread.
The Man Who Planted Trees
The program culminates with a striking restored 4K digital remaster by the Academy Film Archive of Frédéric Back’s classic 1987 Oscar winner, The Man Who Planted Trees. The film has been remastered by the Academy Film Archive and color corrected for the tour at Picture Shop Post.
Based on a (possibly autobiographical) fable by Jean Giono, the hand-drawn epic narrated by Christopher Plummer is a prescient environmentalist plea: It tells the story of a young man’s encounter with an isolated shepherd, Elzéard Bouffier, who is determined to renew his barren landscape by planting thousands of trees. As the shepherd’s efforts bear fruit, the film’s palette gradually moves from dusty browns to a range of colors, evoking memories of the great impressionist painters.
Back (1924-2013) was himself an avid defender of animals and the environment — a lifelong vegetarian who planted some 10,000 trees on his country estate outside Montreal, and a founder of the Quebec Society for the Defense of Animals and Society for Overcoming Pollution.
“I can’t emphasize how great an impact this film had on me when it was first released,” says Diamond. “It was an inspiration, both aesthetically and ideologically — and its message is even more relevant as the effects of global climate change become increasingly devastating. We included it in Expanded Entertainment’s The 21st International Tournée of Animation (1988) — its first release after winning the Academy Award — and showed it across North American in art house theaters. More recently, I encouraged the Academy Foundation to restore and remaster it, which enabled this beautiful digital print. This story of one man’s success at battling the world’s deterioration is the perfect note of hope to end on.”
The Man Who Planted Trees production artwork
As a bonus, an exhibition of original production art from the films listed below will be presented at selected art house theaters and on college and university campuses.
The Animation Show of Shows is funded by major studios, companies, schools and hundreds of animation lovers around the world. Learn more about the films in current and past programs and their makers and stay informed of theatrical engagements by signing up at animationshowofshows.com.
You can also watch trailers and teasers for the films on the Animation Show of Shows /Acme Filmworks YouTube channel.
The results of the 2022 Animation Guild Officers and Executive Board election are in. IATSE Local 839 announces that three of five Animation Guild Officers won re-election this round, including Business Representative Steve Kaplan, President Jeanette Moreno King and Recording Secretary Paula Spence.
“It is an incredible honor to be reelected as TAG’s Business Representative. The election results show the membership stands behind the work that we have put into growing the footprint, and therefore the strength, of the Local,” says Kaplan. “I welcome the new Executive Board members in their leadership positions, and I look forward to working with them towards continuing the work of organizing the animation industry.”
This has been a busy year for TAG, buoyed by the return of interest in unions from today’s working generations. The Guild has helped organize animators, artists and production workers at high profile studios like Bento Box, Titmouse and ShadowMachine as well as crews working on hit series The Simpsons, Family Guy, Solar Opposites and Tooning Out the News.
“We accomplished much during the last three years: organizing production staff, expanding to a national union, big gains in our last contract negotiations — and all during a pandemic and social and political unrest,” notes Moreno King. “The fact that I get to keep representing this amazing community for another three-year term with an Executive Board that is 75% women is a career high. I am looking forward to continuing the fight for respect for all animation workers.”
Re-elected President Jeanette Moreno King at The Animation Guild’s #NewDeal4Animation rally in Burbank earlier this year.
The following Guild members were elected as officers, all ran unopposed:
President Jeanette Moreno King
Vice President Teri Hendrich Cusumano
Business Representative Steve Kaplan
Recording Secretary Paula Spence
Sergeant-at-Arms Danny Ducker
The following 11 Guild members were elected to the Executive Board, in order of vote count:
Carrie Liao, Story Artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios
Ashley Long, Supervising Director
Roger Oda, Visual Development Artist at DreamWorks Television
Get ready to flip your lid: Award-winning Dutch animation team Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins and Job Roggeveen (Job, Joris & Marieka) have debuted a new animated children’s series, Swop, based on their International Emmy-winning short film Kop Op (Heads Together). Aimed at kids 8-12, the 12 x 10′ comedy-adventure is screening on Netherlands pubcaster NPO.
Swop
Synopsis:Swop tells the story of three friends: Sef, Wesley and Marjory. One day, they discover an abandoned washing machine that seems to possess mysterious powers: it lets you swop your own head with someone else’s. This presents the three friends with a range of possibilities. For every problem they face, they can think up a solution by exchanging heads.
…It goes without saying that this is not the right approach to take, because it often leads to confusing and comical situations. But once they’ve swopped heads, they are literally able to see the world through different eyes. As a result, they go through a transformation that enables them to ultimately resolve or accept their own problem
The Dutch voice cast features Nasrdin Dchar as Sef, Steye van Dam as Wesley and Paulien Cornelisse as Marjory.
The series is produced by Viking Film, co-produced by VPRO and Job, Joris & Marieke, and financed by NPO fonds, VPRO and the Netherlands Production Incentive. Job, Joris & Marieke serves as series directors, with Lotte Tabbers and Luuk van Bemmelen as writers and music by Job, Joris & Marieke.
Attraction is handling sales for the series, with Kaboom on festival distribution.
The winners of Portugal’s 46th Cinanima International Animated Film Festival (cinanima.pt) were announced Sunday, following a week-long program of international perspectives through screenings of shorts, features, commissioned films, as well as industry panels, workshops and masterclasses.
Topping the list of prize winners for 2022 were Nuno Beato’s mixed-media feature My Grandfather’s Demons, Chilean stop-motion short Bestia by Hugo Covarrubias, Laura Gonçalves’ family history The Garbage Man and José Miguel Ribeiro’s multi-generational tale Nayola, set against the violent backdrop of the Angolan Civil War.
The Grand Prize winner of the Cinanima international shorts competition qualifies for consideration in the Academy Awards Best Animated Short Film category. However, this year’s winner in Espinho, Bestia, was already nominated for the Oscar last year.
Audience Award – Nayola by José Miguel Ribeiro (Portugal/Belgium/France/Netherlands)
Garbage Man
National Competition
António Gaio Award – The Garbage Man by Laura Gonçalves
Special Mention – Garranoby David Doutel & Vasco Sá
Young Portuguese Director (Under 18) – The Magic Cherry Tree by Graça Gomes
Special Mention – Little Memories by Ana Emilia Valente, Carina Silva, Elisabete Pereira, Filipe Oliveira, Firmino Matos, Isabel Matos, Joana Sousa, Margarida Beirao, Manuel Sousa, Maria Adelaide Teixeira, Paulo Brito, Pedro Rebeio, Sandra Almeida, Sofia Anjos, Vera Santos, Vitor Marques, Zelinda Moutela
Young Portuguese Director (18-30) – Duo by João Levezinho
Following the unveiling of the official opening sequence and Season 2 order during New York Comic Con last month, Disney Branded Television is treating fans to an extended animated music video for the Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur theme song. The MV features the full-length song and never-before-seen clips from the upcoming animated seres.
Hopefully the energetic and colorful clip will help fans get through their wintry wait for the series, which premieres February 10 on Disney Channel, followed by a Disney+ release.
The main title song, “Moon Girl Magic” (available to stream on multiple platforms), is written and produced by three-time Grammy Award winner Raphael Saadiq, who serves are the series executive music producer.
“The tone and the characters of this show are inspiring. I appreciate the Disney team working with me to push such smart music for a very smart Moon Girl,” said Saadiq. “I’m pleased to be giving this generation the kind of music that was gifted to me by the greats, and I’m excited for the world to hear it.”
Based on Marvel’s hit comic books, Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is centered on Lunella, Marvel’s first African-American teenage girl Super Hero. The series is executive-produced by Laurence Fishburne and Helen Sugland’s Cinema Gypsy Productions and Emmy Award-winner Steve Loter.
The voice cast features Diamond White as Lunella Lafayette (a.k.a. Moon Girl), Fred Tatasciore as Devil Dinosaur, Libe Barer as Casey, Alfre Woodard as Mimi, Sasheer Zamata as Adria, Jermaine Fowler as James Jr., Gary Anthony Williams as Pops and Fishburne as The Beyonder.
Rapidly growing, privately held toy and entertainment company MGA continues to expand its horizons with the formation of MGA Studios — an independent subsidiary backed by over half a billion dollars in cash and assets. With this move, MGA continues its evolution within the digital entertainment landscape, having changed its name from Micro Games of America to MGA Entertainment more than 35 years ago.
“While continued innovation in the toy category remains a key driver for our business, we understand the world is changing and are fully committed to carrying our winning legacy into this new and evolving digital landscape,” said Isaac Larian, Founder & CEO, MGA Entertainment, Inc. “ In addition to growing our large catalog of television, movie and streaming content, through MGA Studios we aim to create smaller and safer mini universes for our children to grow and develop in a seamless digital and physical entertainment ecosystem.”
MGA also announced today that digital animation studio Pixel Zoo Animation is MGA Studios’ first acquisition. Delivering 2D, 3D, motion graphics and VFX for clients around the world, the Brisbane-based studio has created animated content for toy and collectible brands as well as series like Little Baby Bum. Paul Gillett, Founder & CEO of Pixel Zoo, will continue in his role supporting MGA Studios’ growth into a dominant position globally.
“During the past few years, we have been extremely impressed by MGA’s brands, how they partner with their suppliers, as well as their creative and execution capabilities. Intellectual property development has always been an important part of our studio and this opportunity allows our team to show the world what we can do,” said Gillett. “Working with MGA has been one of the most rewarding experiences we have had, so partnering with them is the next natural step for us. I am excited for our studio to be the first foundational building block of MGA Studios.”
MGA Entertainment and Pixel Zoo have collaborated on many notable projects during the last several years, including L.O.L. Surprise! The Movie, available on Netflix; L.O.L. Surprise! House of Surprises series, available on YouTube and Netflix; the Rainbow High series, available on YouTube and Netflix; Mermaze Mermaidz series, available on YouTube; Let’s Go Cozy Coupe series, available on YouTube and Prime Video; and more. Their latest movie collab, L.O.L. Surprise! Winter Fashion Show, premiered on Netflix in October.
The newly established MGA Studios has rights to more than 7,000 trademarks, patents and copyrighted works that, with the financial backing of MGA Entertainment, could be joining these popular IPs in the animated universe soon. MGA Ent. is also home to award-winning brands Little Tikes, Shadow High, Bratz, Baby Born Surprise and Zapf Creation.
A vibrant and inspiring new 3D craft show for preschoolers is ready to brighten up Channel 5’s Milkshake! block in the U.K., when Pop Paper City premieres at 9 a.m. GMT on Saturday, November 12. Blending 3D adventures with live-action crafts, the 11-minute episodes introduce viewers to a unique group of friends living in a stunning and peculiar paper world, where they find new ways to have fun together and use crafting to solve their problems.
Produced by award-winning Bournemouth-bated indie studio LoveLove Films, Pop Paper City features live-action montages within the show to inspire children to make their own paper creations, encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’. The character Helping Hand, voiced by TV star Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso, Intelligence, Christopher Robin), plays an integral part as he takes the form of a real hand, which comes down into the screen, interacting with the 3D world to help the characters when they need an adult’s supervision.
Founder and Managing Director of LoveLove Films, Georgina Hurcombe, was inspired to create a craft series like the ones she enjoyed growing up. “I loved crafting when I was a kid, and I loved shows like Blue Peter and Art Attack. I can remember an episode of Blue Peter where they crafted Tracy Island from The Thunderbirds, and it was so fun to make,” Hurcombe recalls.
“Of course, my version of Tracy Island looked nothing like the one they made; it more closely resembled a blob of papier-mâché, but I loved making it and it was shows like these that helped inspire Pop Paper City. I wanted children to really be a part of the adventure themselves. I feel it’s so important that kids are ‘doing as well as viewing’ so the viewers can craft along and everything in Pop Paper City can be reproduced in paper and the show itself encourages families to get together and create the parts of the world together.”
Pop Paper City
The series follows Plom, Phoebe, Mae-Mae, Zip, Hooper and Fly (all voiced by real children) as they explore the world of Pop Paper City, a vivid, vast and exciting place. The characters travel to urban environments, explore caves, the ocean or even outer space — Just like children’s imaginations, the world of Pop Paper City has no bounds for creativity and exploration.
As well as encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’, the show encourages sustainability. “We are passionate about taking on projects for positive change,” Hurcombe explains, “and have previously worked with the United Nations Environment to produce animated children’s content about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling.”
In the series, the Helping Hand character suggests to the children watching at home that they can use recycled materials as well as reusing everyday household items such as egg boxes, cardboard or toilet roll tubes.
“I truly believe that Pop Paper City has the power to inspire children across the globe to ‘get crafty’,” Hurcombe adds. “Pop Paper City has always been our passion project. I’m delighted to be in production with the series and can’t wait for it to be on screens both in the U.K. and around the world.”
Nickelodeon has announced that the first-ever SpongeBob Universe crossover special, SpongeBob SquarePants Presents The Tidal Zone, is now slated to debut first quarter (1Q) 2023. The multidimensional adventure through the ocean deep was previously set to premiere ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 25.
Synopsis: SpongeBob SquarePants Presents The Tidal Zone is a journey into an hour of television where two dimensions can become three, and French divers can wear black ties. Observe a tale of both comedy and caution, of satire and stupidity. Minds may switch, bodies may shrink and robots may rise in … “The Tidal Zone.”
The one-hour special encompasses all three animated series within the SpongeBob Universe — SpongeBob SquarePants, The Patrick Star Show and the Paramount+ original Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years — as it follows Patrick Star’s GrandPat through each wild, watery dimension.
Check out the recently released sneak peek of Tidal Zonehere.
Perhaps the most mind-bending animated feature of the year, Mad God from two-time Academy Award-winning stop-motion wizard Phil Tippett is ready to stun home audiences on DVD and SteelBook Blu-ray/DVD launching December 6. The Shudder Original is being released by RLJE Films, a unit of AMC Networks.
Mad God
Mad Godis a macabre and surreal horror experiment centered on a character dubbed The Assassin. Viewers follow this enigmatic figure’s journey through “a forbidding world of tortured souls, decrepit bunkers and wretches monstrosities forged from the primordial horrors of the subconscious mind.”
Written and directed by Tippett (Star Wars, Jurassic Park), this decades-long labor of love features meticulously hand-crafted characters, creatures and setpieces all painstakingly animated frame by frame. Mad God was awarded Most Groundbreaking Film and Best Animated Feature at Fantasia 2021 as well as Best Visual Effects at Sitges 2021, and has been described as “A hellish accumulation that, in its entirety, creates a divine comedy” (Austin Chronicle).
Mad God
Bonus Features:
Commentary with Phil Tippett and Guillermo del Toro
Cast & Crew Commentary
Interview with Mad God Writer/Director Phil Tippett
RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 winner, comedian and overall icon Bob the Drag Queen is ready to slay in Herkleton, guest starring in today’s (Friday) brand-new episode of Craig of the Creek. Bob will be voicing a “Ducci” purse in the episode, which we hear was written in part by a series storyboard artist who is a big Drag Race fan — and even sees Craig’s mom Nicole utter Bob’s catchphrase, “purse first.”
Bob the Drag Queen
“Back toCool” premieres Fri., November 11 at 4 p.m. ET/PT on Cartoon Network, streaming on HBO Max the next day.
Synopsis: The Ducci Bag is a luxury purse, with an enchanting voice (Bob the Drag Queen), that coerces Craig (Philip Solomon) into taking the biggest fashion risk of his life.
In this episode, Craig is told that the purse he wears every day is out of fashion. Fortunately, his mother, Nicole (Kimberly Hebert Gregory), comes home with a brand-new Ducci Bag. Nicole tells Craig not to touch it, but The Ducci Bag comes to life and tempts Craig, hoping to turn him into the “King of Looks.”
Even if this forbidden fantasy of a fashion accessory lands Craig in the dog house, one thing’s for sure: this bag has Craig squarely in the House of Ducci.
The Pokémon Company group revealed Friday that plucky Pallet Town boy Ash Ketchum has become the top Trainer in the Pokémon world! He was crowned the winner of the Masters Eight Tournament of the Pokémon World Coronation Series in the latest episode of Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series, which premiered today (Nov. 11) in Japan.
In the latest season of the Pokémon animated series, Ash and his Pikachu have put their training to the test — and as a result, Ash has officially achieved his goal of becoming the new Monarch of the Pokémon World Coronation Series. The historic win represents a culmination of Ash’s adventures in the Pokémon world, from countless battles to challenging quests, spanning 25 years.
Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series
Since the start of their journey in the Kanto region, Ash and his Pikachu have faced numerous rivals, often coming in shy of a tournament victory. However, the pair continued to forge ahead, with Ash eventually securing the title of the first-ever Pokémon League Champion at the Manalo Conference in the Alola region, signifying how far he had come as a Pokémon Trainer.
Ash’s title of World Champion is also a significant pop culture milestone and cause for celebration for Pokémon fans around the world, who have remained committed to following his journey over the past 25 years.
Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series
“Ash Ketchum’s determination and perseverance to achieve his goal of becoming the world’s top Pokémon Trainer over the course of 25 seasons represents the very best of what it means to be a Trainer,” said Taito Okiura, VP of Marketing for The Pokémon Company International. “We cannot wait to celebrate this moment with Pokémon fans when the newest season of Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series and this adventure-defining episode air around the world in the coming year. This is a season fans won’t want to miss!”
Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series is streaming now exclusively on Netflix in the U.S. Fans can stay tuned to Netflix for new episode availability information and to join Ash and his Pikachu as he embarks on his latest adventure in becoming the world’s strongest Pokémon Trainer.
The holiday season is on the hoof, and this year MLP fans are treated to an animated celebration with a magical Equestria twist in the new special My Little Pony: Winter Wishday, featuring the Mane 5 of My Little Pony: Make Your Mark. The snowbound adventure arrives November 21 on Netflix.
Synopsis: Winter Wishday is fast approaching, and the Mane 5 are all looking forward to the magical holiday celebration. Sunny can’t wait to exchange gifts with her friends under the wishing star that night in Maretime Bay, but finds that each of the Mane 5 have their own holiday traditions to celebrate as well. So, they hatch a plan to celebrate everypony’s traditions in one day with the help of Izzy’s newest upcycle project: a flying van they name the Mare Stream!
Together they takeoff through the snow to their first holiday stop, Hitch’s grandma Figgy’s house. There they build gingerbread houses and discover that, while Hitch assures them his grandma is very strict about her holiday traditions, it’s actually him who’s tied to his Wishday nostalgia. Afterward they depart to Bridlewood for Izzy’s unicorn tradition of placing her hoofmade ordainment on the Wishing Tree, a stop made even longer by Izzy stopping to tell every pony she sees “frosty shivers,” the traditional unicorn Wishday greeting.
Racing against the clock, they head off to Zephyr Heights to attend the Wishday Carol Concert, which unfortunately runs way longer than expected. When it’s finally time to leave, the Mane 5 find that the snowfall has become so heavy that they can’t find the Mare Stream. With her detective skills and a little help from a book she borrowed from Grandma Figgy, Zipp puts together that the unicorns, not yet used to having their magic back, are accidently casting a spell when they say “frosty shivers” to each other. With this info, the Mane 5 journey back to Bridlewood to stop the holiday blizzard and barely make it back to Maretime Bay in time to exchange their gifts under the Wishing Star together. As the Wishing Star goes by, the Unity Crystals shine bright from the Crystal Brighthouse and send a rainbow up to it, creating a glorious light display in the sky over Equestria.
The voice cast features Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Zipp, Jenna Warren as Sunny, JJ Gerber as Hitch, Ana Sani as Izzy, AJ Bridel as Pipp, Rob Tinkler as Sparky, Elley Ray Hennessy as Grandma Figgy, Amanda Martinez as Queen Haven and Andrew Jackson as Alphabittle.
My Little Pony: Winter Wishday was developed by franchise veteran Gillian Berrow, with William Lau (MLP: Make Your Mark, The Last Kids on Earth, Super Dinosaur) as supervising director, Cort Lane as executive producer and Tristan Homer as co-executive producer.
Actor Kevin Conroy, prolific fan-favorite voice of DC’s Batman in the animated universe, died Thursday at age 66 after a short battle with cancer.
Donning Batman’s mantle, Conroy set unbroken records, voicing the iconic character in nearly 60 different productions, including 15 films, 15 animated series — spanning nearly 400 episodes and more than 100 hours of television — and more than two dozen video games. He also appeared as a live-action Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event (2019-2020). In recent years, fans could encounter him as a warm, enthusiastic fixture on the Con circuit
“Kevin was far more than an actor whom I had the pleasure of casting and directing — he was a dear friend for 30+ years whose kindness and generous spirit knew no boundaries,” said Emmy Award-winning casting/dialog director Andrea Romano. “Kevin’s warm heart, delightfully deep laugh and pure love of life will be with me forever.”
Mark Hamill, who redefined the villainous Joker opposite Conroy’s Batman, shared: “Kevin was perfection. He was one of my favorite people on the planet, and I loved him like a brother. He truly cared for the people around him — his decency shone through everything he did. Every time I saw him or spoke with him, my spirits were elevated.”
Kevin Conroy, left, was a frequent guest at comics and pop culture conventions, participating in panels and greetings fans. (ph. c/o Warner Bros. Animation)
Born on November 30, 1955 in Westbury, New York, and raised in Westport, Connecticut, Conroy began his actor’s journey under the tutelage of John Houseman at The Julliard School — where he studied alongside the likes of Christopher Reeve, Frances Conroy and his roommate, Robin Williams.
He began his career on the stage, performing in New York and at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, generating rave reviews for starring roles in in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Public Theater), Eastern Standard (Broadway), Arthur Miller’s The Last Yankee and in the title role of Hamlet at the 1984 New York Shakespeare Festival. He also broke into film and television, most notably in the mid-1980s when he had recurring roles on Dynasty, Tour of Duty and Ohara; successful runs on soap operas Search for Tomorrow and Another World; and guest roles on popular series like Cheers, Murphy Brown, Spenser: For Hire and Matlock.
But Conroy’s legend was set in stone with the premiere of Bruce Timm’s critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series on September 5, 1992, which ran until 1996. From then onward, Conroy would be known as the voice of the Dark Knight across animated television series like Batman Beyond and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited; films ranging from the highly regarded Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman: The Killing Joke and Batman: Gotham Knight to Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
Batman: The Killing Joke
“Kevin was a brilliant actor,” said Hamill. “For several generations, he has been the definitive Batman. It was one of those perfect scenarios where they got the exact right guy for the exact right part, and the world was better for it. His rhythms and subtleties, tones and delivery — that all also helped inform my performance. He was the ideal partner — it was such a complementary, creative experience. I couldn’t have done it without him. He will always be my Batman.”
Batman: The Animated Series producer Paul Dini recalled, “Kevin brought a light with him everywhere, whether in the recording booth giving it his all, or feeding first respondersduring 9/11, or making sure every fan who ever waited for him had a moment with their Batman. A hero in every sense of the word. Irreplaceable. Eternal.”
A representative for WBA shared the following statement on Conroy’s passing: “Warner Bros. Animation is saddened by the loss of our dear friend Kevin Conroy. His iconic performance of Batman will forever stand among the greatest portrayals of the Dark Knight in any medium. We send our warmest thoughts to his loved ones and join fans around the world in honoring his legacy.”
Conroy is survived by his husband Vaughn C. Williams, sister Trisha Conroy and brother Tom Conroy. Plans for memorial services are pending.
[Source: Gary Miereanu / Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment]
USC School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) has announced a new MFA program, Expanded Animation Research + Practice (XA) that launched during the Fall 2022 semester. Details were revealed today by Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The XA program “converges multiculturalism, critical thinking and aesthetically emboldened risk taking.” Through individual mentorship and a flexible curriculum, the three-year MFA degree allows students to design their own career path and to draw from courses in animation and in the other six SCA divisions. Students will have the opportunity to collaborate with other schools at USC in the arts, humanities, STEM and social sciences.
“How does animation penetrate fields beyond art and entertainment? What is the future of animation? How can we apply our art practice in an ethical and socially responsible manner? Expanded Animation strives to answer these questions, innovate and challenge perceptions around the art form,” says Professor Kathy Smith, the director of the program. “XA will draw on creative and technical innovations to expand the meaning of the art form and establish new ways of using animation to perceive, understand and express the world around us.”
Last Stop (Shelby Chan, MFA 2021)
About SCA’s XA MFA:
The Expanded Animation program (expandedanimation.usc.edu) is designed for artists, directors and visionaries seeking to advance the field while exploring new forms of animation practice, including artificial intelligence, socially impactful animation and academic excellence across the arts, academia and industry.
An international award-winning faculty (expandedanimation.usc.edu/people) will lead the program in Experimental Animation, Animated Painting, 2D/3D Animation, Real-Time & Virtual Performance Animation, AI Animation, Stop-Motion Animation, Documentary Animation and Cinematic Installation Art. There will also be research concentrations in Performance Gesture, Animation for Robotics, Virtual Humans, Advanced Character Performance, Cinematic Installations, Fine Art Animation Practice, Dreams and Consciousness, Sonic Art & Sound Design and Science Visualization.
The XA program is globally facing and emphasizes diversity, community and collaboration, bridging multiple disciplines and schools at USC in Los Angeles and internationally through internships, residencies, academic research, teaching and exhibition opportunities. The program “welcomes individualist animation artists who are passionate about the art form, social justice, strive for excellence and share a commitment to significantly impact the field.”
Applications for USC SCA’s XA program are now being accepted; the deadline is November 15, 2022. Instructions and details available here.
Pop singer, actress and fashion icon Tia Lee got fans buzzing this week, posting a count down graphic for three consecutive days after deleting all her Instagram posts on November 6. The images, depicting a girl sinking into the depths of the ocean, have let into the launch of a teaser for the starlet’s debut animation project.
Dropped today (Nov. 10), the 17-second teaser and cinematic poster introduced Goodbye Princess, a series of six unique animated episodes serving as a prelude to Lee’s new song of the same name. The project will relate the artist’s journey as she begins a new chapter in her life and career.
The first episode, “Falling in the Deep,” will be released across Lee’s social channels tomorrow (November 11). The other episode titles also revealed today are “Stuck in Time,” “The Puppet,” “Pawn to Queen,” “Temptation Apple” and “The Beginning.”
Tia Lee (李毓芬), born in Taipei, is a pop singer, film and television actress, model and former member of the girl band Dream Girls. She also appears frequently at major fashion shows, and has graced the covers of Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire, as well as sharing her beauty and fashion tips through a number of Vogue‘s social media channels.
Another anime interpretation of a hit video game franchise is ready to transport Netflix viewers next month in Dragon Age: Absolution (6 x 30′). Premiering December 9, an all-new trailer, key art and first-look images dropped today, revealing the dangerous and enchanted corners of BioWare’s RPG world.
Synopsis: When a heist against the most powerful man in Tevinter goes south, an elven mercenary named Miriam (multi-award-winning voice actress Kimberly Brooks) is forced into a desperate fight for survival. Now, to save herself and her friends, Miriam will have to confront the tragic past she’s spent a lifetime trying to escape.
Created in collaboration with Dragon Age franchise creator BioWare, Dragon Age: Absolution is set in Tevinter and features an ensemble of new characters inspired by Dragon Age lore, including elves, mages, knights, Qunari, Red Templars, demons and other special surprises.
Kimberly Brooks as Miriam – A pragmatic elven mercenary who escaped enslavement in Tevinter, Miriam is closed-off to many who know her. But her heroic nature shines through when she’s forced to confront the nation that destroyed her life, and the man at the heart of her misery.
Matthew Mercer as Fairbanks – A veteran freedom fighter, Fairbanks leads our heroes with a warm-hearted sense of adventure, a pair of daggers and a dashing smile to boot.
Ashly Burch as Qwydion – A bubbly Qunari mage with a penchant for explosions, Qwydion is an open-hearted, easily-distracted blabbermouth who can level a building or cure a hangover, depending on the situation.
Sumalee Montano as Hira – An idealistic mage, Hira hopes to rekindle her relationship with Miriam while advancing her relentless crusade against Tevinter. But a terrible secret will put both at risk.
Phil LaMarr as Roland – Despite his effortless demeanor, the charming Roland possesses unmatched grit. When disaster looms and all seems lost, Roland is as sure as the blade he wields.
Keston John as Lacklon – A dwarven Lord of Fortune, Lacklon is a gruff fighter, a born brawler, a complete glory hound — and just enough of a coward to make sure he stays alive.
Josh Keaton as Rezaren – Born to privilege and plagued by tragedy, Rezaren sees himself as a good man in a wicked world. Intelligent and charismatic, Rezaren is determined to build a better future for everyone in Tevinter, no matter the cost.
Zehra Fazal as Tassia – Dutiful and hardworking, Tassia turns a blind eye to everything that doesn’t meet her moral standards. But even she won’t be able to ignore the sins of Tevinter (or Rezaren) forever…
The series is produced by Bucheon-based animation studio Red Dog Culture House and BioWare for Netflix, with Mairghread Scott (Guardians of the Galaxy series) as showrunner, executive producer and writer. Ki Yong Bae (The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf; Love, Death + Robots: Good Hunting) is series director, Mae Catt and Tim Sheridan are writers and Chris Bain, Matthew Goldman and John Epier are exec producers.
Since debuting in 2009, the award-winning Dragon Age video game franchise has brought players into the world of Thedas with rich stories, unforgettable characters, and beautiful and deadly locales to discover. The next upcoming game, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, will be a single-player focused experience that further builds on this incredible adventure.
