Animation Magazine

Author: Ryan Ball

  • ADV Snags Le Chevalier D’Eon

    Anime distributor ADV Films has acquired rights the animated TV series Le Chevalier D’Eon from Shochiku, one of Japan’s leading entertainment conglomerates. Under the deal, ADV will handle North American TV and VOD distribution of the series and also takes theatrical, home video and TV rights to the live-action feature films Ghost Train and Synesthesia. The company plans to release all three titles before the summer of 2007.

    Shochiku’s popular gothic mystery series Le Chevalier D’Eon is directed by acclaimed director Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Get Backers, Rurouni Kenshin) from an original story by Tow Ubukata (Fafner), who is also credited as story supervisor. The show is based on a real-life exploits of a handsome intellect and diplomat who lived in the 18th century and traveled various countries passing himself off as a woman.

    The live-action feature Ghost Train has an 18-year-old high school girl named looking after her younger sister, Noriko, while their mother is in the hospital. Nana’s world turns into a nightmare when Noriko suddenly disappears and the only clue she has is a train commuter’s pass and the dark shadow that follows Noriko in the surveillance camera.

    Directed by Toru Matsuura, Synesthesia is a suspense thriller based on the neurological condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. Unsolved mysteries and serial murder ensue when two lonely souls who possess the same puzzle of mind meet each other.

    ADV Films’ best-selling titles the anime favorites Neon Genesis Evangelion, RahXephon, Robotech, Full Metal Panic, Hello Kitty and Azumanga Daioh. The company is also introducing North American audiences to new anime franchises such as Gantz, Elfen Lied, Chrono Crusade, Peacemaker and DNAngel. In 2005 ADV was voted Best Anime Company in the SPJA awards, presented at Anime Expo, North America’s largest anime convention.

  • Bee Movie Trailer Debuts

    Moviegoers checking out DreamWorks’ Flushed Away this weekend will get a first glimpse at the studio’s Nov. 2007 animated release, Bee Movie. The trailer for the insect comedy has also been posted at http://movies.aol.com/movie/bee-movie/22560/main. The movie’s official web site has been launched at www.beemovie.com.

    Slated for release on Nov. 2 next year, Bee Movie is co-written by, produced by and starring Jerry Seinfeld. The comedian voices the role of Barry B. Benson, a recent college graduate who wants to do more with his life than make honey. He ventures out of the hive, meets a florist named Vanessa (Renee Zellweger) and decides to sue the human race for stealing honey from bees. Seinfeld wrote the script with Barry Marder, Spike Feresten (The Simpsons, Space Ghost Coast to Coast) and Andy Robin (Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live).

    The film’s all-star cast also includes Chris Rock (Madagascar), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill), Kathy Bates (Popey’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy), Eric Idle (the Monty Python movies and series) Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine), Matthew Broderick (The Producers), Robert Duvall (The Godfather: The Game), William H. Macy (Doogal), Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Patrick Warburton (The Emperor’s New Groove), Larry King (Shrek 2) and talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.

    Bee Movie is being directed by Steve Hickner (The Prince of Egypt) and Simon J. Smith (the Shrek 4-D amusement park attraction). Producer duties go to Christina Steinberg (National Treasure). The family comedy will follow the debut of DreamWork’s Shrek 3, which is currently slated to arrive in theaters on May 18, 2007.

  • Flushed Away Plunges into Theaters

    DreamWorks today released its latest CG animated feature, a humorous and action-backed rat tale co-produced by world-famous U.K. toon house Aardman Animations. Flushed Away splashes into theaters across North America in hopes that the toon-packed summer hasn’t quite quenched moviegoers’ thirst for zany computer-generated fun with animals.

    Flushed Away stars Hugh Jackman as the voice of Roddy St. James, a pampered, high rise-dwelling rat who leaves the posh life when he gets flushed down the toilet and into the sewer where he makes new friends and learns how the other half lives. Kate Winslet is Rita, a tough-as-nails sewer boat driver who captures Roddy’s heart and Sir Ian Mckellen is the frog villain, Toad. The voice cast also includes Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy and Shane Ritchie.

    Unlike DreamWorks an Aardman’s previous two collaborations, the clay-animated Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Flushed Away is created entirely in CG. Written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies, the pic is directed by Sam Fell, an animator whose short films include Chump and Pop, and David Bowers, an animation veteran who most recently served as senior storyboard artist on Were-Rabbit. Read some of their observations on the making of the film in this month’s ‘Animated People’ feature on this site.

    Flushed Away has been garnering mostly positive reviews from the nation’s leading critics and is the weekend’s widest rollout, but it does have some competition in the family film category. Buena Vista’s Santa Clause 3: Escape Clause opens nearly as wide today with Time Allen reprising the role of the jolly one. The first two Santa Clause movies performed quite well at the box office but this latest entry arrives fairly quietly due to a sparse marketing push. With a much more robust campaign, Flushed Away is likely to win the weekend, especially since 20th Century Fox rolled back the theater count for the much talked about cpomedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. In an effort to avoid a Snakes on a Plane situation, where box office fails to live up to the buzz, the studio has released the critically acclaimed Borat in just over 800 theaters.

    The next animated release is right around the bend. Warner Bros.’ musical penguin movie, Happy Feet, arrives in theaters on Nov. 17. Read more about the film in the December issue of Animation Magazine, and go behind the scenes with Flushed Away in the November issue. Both are currently available at Barnes & Noble locations and other booksellers.

  • Academy Names Eligible Toons

    This year’s healthy flow of animated feature films has given the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences plenty to think about as Oscar time nears. The organization has released a list of 16 movies qualified to compete for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

    Pics making the first cut are Warner Bros.’ The Ant Bully and Happy Feet, The Weinstein Co.’s Arthur and the Invisibles, Paramount/Nickelodeon’s Barnyard, Disney/Pixar’s Cars, Disney’s The Wild, Universal’s Curious George, 20th Century Fox’s Everyone’s Hero and Ice Age: The Meltdown, DreamWorks/Aardman’s Flushed Away, DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge, Sony’s Monster House and Open Season, Warner Independent’s A Scanner Darkly, Miramax’s Renaissance and Sony Pictures Classics’ Paprika.

    Perhaps the darkest horse in the race, Paprika is the latest anime feature from director Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue). In the film, a young female psychiatrist must put an end to evil doing when the wrong hands get hold of a machine that lets therapists enter their patients’ dreams. The thriller’s clever tagline is ‘This is your brain on anime.’

    Paprika, Arthur and the Invisibles and Happy Feet have not yet had their required Los Angeles releases and will drop off the list if they do not open within the year. If the number of features drops below 16, a maximum of three films will be nominated under Academy rules. Films submitted in the Animated Feature category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.

    Nominations for the 79th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007, at 5:30 a.m. PST in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Awards will then be handed out on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m.

  • Flushed Away Directors Sam Fell and David Bowers

    Flushed Away, the latest big-screen animated feature from DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations has finally made it theaters after more than three years of hard work from both camps. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with the film’s directors, Sam Fell and David Bowers, to hear some of their observations on various aspects of making the film.

    Capturing the Aardman Style

    Sam Fell: We knew what Aardman films looked like from Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, so we had a point of reference for ourselves and the team here at DreamWorks. Happily, the team here is an amazing team’incredibly talented technicians, artists and they just loved Walace & Gromit and really pulled it off. We knew we could technically execute the Aardman style, but we didn’t know whether the spirit of Aardman would come through. It’s quite an abstract thing, but everyone here got it

    David Bowers: If you look at the DreamWorks movies, they’re very diverse styles. Looking at Shrek, Madagascar and Shark Tale, they all seem very different so we didn’t doubt that they could match the Aardman style for a second.

    We did early tests and one of the first things we did is we just got a warehouse over in Bristol in England and filled it full of junk’old furniture and trash and stuff and built a piece of our world, a set, out of this stuff. We painted it, lit it and set-dressed it and got into all the details of what the rats would have done and shot it so we know how it would have worked if we’d done it at Aardman. Then we took all that reference and information and we brought it over here and the guys recreated the set in the computer. They created it perfectly. You’d look at the two next to each other and you couldn’t tell the difference, so we knew very early on that it was all going to be okay.

    British Sensibilities

    DB: For a while we worried about it because we didn’t want to make a film that appealed to a small audience but we wanted a film that felt British. A lot of British things travel very well. The Harry Potter films feel very British, Narnia feels British and Lord of the Rings feel sort of British in their way. But there was a time we got nervous and started pulling back some of the expressions and we noticed it became a bit less interesting, so we put them all back. Things like someone saying ‘You plonker!’ I don’t know what it means, but it sounds funny.

    We also wanted to make it very modern. The Walace & Gromit films are amazing but you can’t get away from the fact that they’re set in a vary specific part of the north of England and even though they’re modern-day, they’re sort of stuck in post-war and are bit old-fashioned that way.

    SF: We love that style, but we wanted to do our own version.

    Down the Drain

    DB: We toured the sewers of London. We were kind of hoping for nice, big company trip somewhere exotic but we ended up in the drains. We found that there wasn’t much there. We got our hazmat suits on and it was warm and smelly but there wasn’t much to look at. We looked at it and said that we were going to make our world the exact opposite of that. We wanted to make it lighter and beautiful. As Roddy is in the movie, we want the audience to be surprised when they get down there.

    SF: It’s kind of a joke how wonderful it is, really. We made sure there’s plenty of daylight coming so there’s day and night and there’s light in the water and lots plants growing. So we kind of made it fantastically romantic. That’s kind of the point of the film. Roddy’s world in the beginning is very affluent but sterile and he ends up coming to thei world that is no so affluent but still very rich.

    Water

    SF: We couldn’t do that in stop-frame, really. The computer solved all that and we spent a lot of time developing it with the effects people here but we’ve chosen not to make it too flashy. We’ve chosen to keep the water kind of simple and go for a kind of painterly look to it. We could have gotten more carried away with the technology but we actually kept it back. That’s been one of the rules in taking Aardman’s style into the computer’retaining the simplicity.

    CG Vs. Stop-motion

    SF: The animation’s not really much quicker in CG. The computers bring a bigger canvas, but in terms of the process, I think it’s taken about the same amount of time to make this film as it did Wallace & Gromit.

    DB: Stop-frame animation is time consuming when you’re moving a frame at a time but it’s done on real sets with a real camera and once the animator finishes, the shot is done and you can project it the next day. With us, when the animator’s finished it has to go through so many other departments.

    SF: Because we wanted to make sure it felt hand-made, we didn’t want free stuff from the computer. When you get something free from the computer, it becomes almost synthetic.

    DB: On Shrek, the animators will animate the character’s head moving and the computer will figure out what the hair does, for example. But in stop-frame animation or traditional 2D animation, the animators do the hair themselves and it has its own creative reality that just feels authentic.

    SF: Yeah, somebody has to think about it.

    DB: We got the clay-like hair look. I think we went back and looked at things like Chicken Run an the kind of hair the farmers have. It’s a good graphic representation of what hair could be.

    SF: It’s not a realism thing, we weren’t really into that. Although, in terms of modeling and texturing, we wanted it to be real and feel very tactile because I thnk that’s a key to the Aardman look as well. You feel as though you can take them home, those puppets.

    Fur

    SF: We definitely tried to avoid it. If you need it, then it’s a good thing but we didn’t want to be tempted into a lot of that stuff, in all departments. The camera is another place where we didn’t want to do all these super flashy, complex CG camera moves but actually wanted quite an elegant camera style that ws kind of discrete and allowed the acting and comedy to come through.

    DB: That’s true with the character design as well, not putting fur on them for example. The character designs we have are kind of like a blank canvas and the acting has to be very pure because you’re working with such simple elements. You ca be subtle and not rely on all this extra stuff to get you through it. You just gotta be good.

    Inspirations

    SF: I remember going to see Ray Harryhausen [movies] when I was a kid and just the magic of that stuff. I especially liked seeing 3D in stop-frame animation. My first films were just Super 8 and shooting thing just moving, not even with a story in particular, but just the magic of it grabbed me.

    DB: I was brought up on Disney movies and have always loved the classics. I ended up falling into animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and I just enjoyed it and never left.

  • Ant Bully Marches to Disc

    Warner Bros. will release its CG-animated feature film The Ant Bully on home video on Nov. 28. Bonus features on the DVD will include seven animated shorts of an undisclosed nature and additional scenes from the movie.

    Directed by John A. Davis (Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Santa Vs. the Snowman 3-D) and produced by Tom Hanks through his Playtone shingle, The Ant Bully is a fable about a young boy who floods an ant colony and later finds himself shrunken down to the size of an ant. Living among the ants, Nickie is forced to help repair the damage he caused and learns some important lessons about cooperation and community. The film’s voice cast includes Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Zach Tyler, Paul Giamatti and Bruce Campbell.

    Released in theaters over the summer, the film was not one of the stronger animated performers of the year. It pulled in just north of $28 million domestically and $54 million worldwide, scarcely enough to break even on its $50 million budget. Like Disney’s The Wild and other animated entries that slipped through the cracks during this year’s toon boom, Ant Bully should finally find a large audience on home video, especially among fans of John Nickle’s popular children’s book, on which it’s based.

  • VOOM’s Animania Enters ‘Space Race’

    VOOM HD Networks’ Animania HD channel is set to launch viewers into orbit with ‘Space Week,’ a broadcast event featuring high-definition animated programming of the sci-fi variety. Airing Monday, Nov. 6th through Friday, Nov. 10 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. (EST), the lineup will include Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet, Voltron: The Third Dimension, Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future and Pet Alien.

    Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet from Sony Pictures Television International brings CG technology to the classic ‘Supermarionation’ puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons from the 1960s. The new series has Spectrum agent Captain Scarlet still locked in battle with the Mysterons, who destroy men and recreate them as indestructible agents of evil programmed to destroy Earth.

    The giant, shape-shifting mecha robot from the ’80s cartoon series Voltron: Defender of the Universe is back to combat evil in CG-animated form in Voltron: The Third Dimension. The series is produced by Mike Young Prods. and World Events Prods. with animation by Netter Digital in the U.S.

    In Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, Dan is the man when it comes to solar missions and keeping the earth safe. Joined by his loyal sidekick, Digby, and beautiful Professor Peabody, our hero bravely takes on The Mekon in a bid to stop his expanding evil empire. Produced by Foundation Imaging, the series is based on the classic British science-fiction comic-book character created by illustrator Frank Hampson.

    Pet Alien from Mike Young Prods., Antefilms, Crest Animation and Telegael follows the adventures of space aliens who visit the seaside town of DeSpray Bay to experience life on Earth firsthand. Dinko, Gumpers, Flip, Swanky and Scruffy take up residence in the lighthouse hideaway of 12-year-old Tommy and attempt to help the boy with his daily challenges. However, their well-intentioned efforts only succeed in turning his life inside out and upside down.

    Available on Dish Network in the U.S., Animania HD is one of more than 10 high-definition core channels available through VOOM HD Networks, a subsidiary of Rainbow Media. The network’s toon offerings include Akira Kurosawa’s Samurai 7, PicMe, Jungle Beat, 2020, Horrible Histories, The Gravediggers Squad, and Ratz, as well as vintage cartoons The Pink Panther, Dick Tracy, Mr. Magoo and Felix the Cat.

  • TV-Loonland Strong at MIPCOM

    While its new interactive series Face Academy and CG shorts series The Owl generated a good deal of interest at MIPCOM last month, TV-Loonland inked a number of deals with major pay TV and terrestrial broadcasters for its other animated properties at the market. Buyers were particularly keen on Little Princess and seasoned properties Transformers and My Little Pony.

    Little Princess, which has already been sold to ZDF Germany, SVT Sweden, DR Denmark, NRK Norway, YLE Finland and ABC Australia, was picked up at MICPOM by RUV Iceland, MNET South Africa/Africa, ATV Hong Kong and Minimax Hungary. Another 35 episodes of the series have been ordered into production for delivery in late 2007.

    As the Transformers property celebrates it 20th Anniversary and makes it way to the big screen via DreamWorks, TV-Loonland has inked a new DVD deal for the cartoon classic with Selecta Vision in Spain, and a TV deal in Canada with YTV. Other evergreen, toy-based franchises are performing well for the company. My Little Pony was snatched up by CCTV in China, MNET in South Africa and Cartoon Network in India and the Philippines for air in the near future, while offers for home video deals are coming in from Spain, Portugal and Germany.

    Among other deals TV-Loonland closed at MIPCOM is a home video pact with distributor TriNet International in Japan for Little Ghosts, which will soon air on Cartoon Network Japan and TPS France. Both broadcasters have also renewed the first season of Connie The Cow, while TV3 New Zealand re-licensed the Cramp Twins.

  • Simpsons ‘Treehouse’ Goes Interactive

    The trick-or-treaters may have retreated to their lairs to count their candy, but Halloween is never officially over until Fox airs the beloved annual ‘Treehouse of Horror’ installment of The Simpsons. This year, fans can help spread the word about the show by creating promos at a new website created by Fox and Jetset Studios. ‘Treehouse of Horror XVII” airs Sunday, Nov. 5th at 8 p.m.

    Homer devotees can go to http://thesimpsons.com/treehouse to edit their own Simpsons animated promo for a chance to win prizes and the adoration of other fans. To date thousands of videos have been created and new user-generated promos are posted daily for audience viewing and rating.

    Jetset Studios has created online campaigns for 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks, Sony, LionsGate and NBC. “For us, the opportunity to work with Fox Broadcasting Company on “The Simpsons” was a dream project,” says Jetset Studios creative director Russell Scott. “The site is a wonderful complement to the show, and we look forward to seeing the amazing Halloween tricks and treats the users come up with.”

    This year’s ‘Treehouse of Horror’ spoofs the hysteria caused by Orson Welles’ historic 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast and draws parallels to the war in Iraq. The episode has already stirred up controversy for its critical observations of the U.S. invasion and occupation.

  • Rogue Moves Into Castlevania

    Konami’s video game franchise Castlevania is one step closer to a theater near you. According to Daily Variety, Universal Pictures’ Rogue genre label has signed on to distribute the $50 million vampire action flick in North America and several international territories following the pullout of Dimension Films. Rougue will handle the film in the U.K., Spain and German-speaking territories, while other international sales will be covered by Crystal Sky Ent., which is producing and co-financing the pic.

    Castlevania is being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who previously tackled the video-game adaptations Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil, in addition to directing Alien Vs. Predator and Event Horizon. With this latest effort, he plans to provide a new take on the Dracula mythology, likening it to Batman Begins. The script primarily takes place in 15th century Transylvania as Romanian prince Vlad Tepes begins his blood-sucking career. A spokesperson for Rogue says the film will be in the vein of recent action-laden vampire movies Underworld and Blade, with a strong romantic element.

    The popular Castlevania game has the vampire-hunting Belmont family chasing Dracula across centuries in their quest to rid the world of his kind. Like the game, the film will mostly take place in Dracula’s Castle, which Anderson says will be a character unto itself. Castle interiors will be built in Budapest and Anderson and producing partner Jeremy Bolt are scouting locations in Hungary and Romania. Shooting is set to begin next spring.

    It seems Anderson can’t keep away from video-game adaptations. He and Bolt are finishing a third Resident Evil installment and are developing a film a film based on Atari’s Driver franchise for Constantin Films and director Roger Avery, who scripted Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming animated feature Beowulf and co-wrote Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino.

  • Warner Brings Toot & Puddle Home for Christmas

    Pig pals Toot & Puddle are heading to retail in their very first animated holiday special. Warner Home Video has announced plans to release the National Geographic-produced Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home For Christmas on home video on Dec. 5, just in time to stuff the stockings of good boys and girls.

    Based on the best-selling book series from Holly Hobbie, Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home For Christmas finds the winter holiday descending upon Woodcock Pocket. While Puddle is at home baking fruitcake, making paper chains and decorating the house, his best friend, Toot, finds himself stranded in a snow storm far away. With a lot of determination, a bit of luck and some unexpected help from another mysterious holiday traveler, Toot just might make it home from Scotland by Christmas Eve.

    Animated by Grand Slamm Children’s Films, the special runs 44 minutes and will be available on DVD for the list price of $19.98. Holiday shoppers may catch highlights of the film at the mall as part of Warner Home Videos’ deal with The Mall Television Network (MTN). Clips from other Warner movies and specials including The Polar Express, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Bah Humduck: A Looney Tunes Christmas will entertain kids and parents waiting to see Santa at shopping malls across the U.S. this holiday season.

  • MacUser UK Awards Fetes modo

    Last week’s MacExpo conference in London saw the MacUser ‘Maxine’ editorial award for Best 3D Animation Software of the Year given to modo, the flagship product from independent technology company Luxology LLC. The award was presented by MacUser, one of the U.K.’s leading Macintosh magazines, on Oct. 26 during a ceremony at The Hurlingham Club in Fulham, England.

    MacUser chose to honor modo for its ‘superior speed and intuitive user interface.’ The OS X version of modo enables Mac users to create 3D models and images for a variety of applications, including graphic design, game and film production, education and design visualization. Content creation is enhanced by realistic graphics viewports that provide real-time feedback and speed of manipulation.

    ‘We thank MacUser‘s editorial team for recognizing modo,’ says Brad Peebler, president and co-founder of Luxology. ‘The other 3D software competing for this prestigious award is also to be congratulated and we were pleased to be in the company of this new crop of great 3D software.’

    In August of this year, modo was recognized for Best Use of OS X Graphics at the 11th Annual Apple Design Awards, held during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.

    Engineered to smoothly integrate into existing tool pipelines and work together with other leading 2D and 3D software applications, modo accelerates the creation of models, associated color and normal maps, and high-quality renderings. The software is available now for the list price of $895, and is available through Luxology and its worldwide reseller partners on both the Mac OS X (Universal Binary) and Windows platforms. A free 30-day full-function evaluation version of modo is also available for immediate download from www.modo3d.com.

  • AnimFXNZ Celebrates Animation,VFX in NZ

    Industry leaders from DreamWorks, Warner Bros., Blue Sky Studios and other animation and visual effects houses are heading to New Zealand to meet up with Wellington’s own Weta Digital for the inaugural AnimFXNZ. Taking place Nov. 4-5 in Wellington, the symposium will offer two days of lectures, screenings and workshops, as well as a series of business meetings in both Wellington and Auckland. Keynote addresses will be delivered by Warner Bros. Animation president Sander Schwartz, Over the Hedge director Tim Johnson and a man widely regarded as the ‘godfather’ of New Zealand animation, Euan Frizzell.

    Sponsored by Positively Wellington Business and IBM, AnimFXNZ is a first of its kind event for New Zealand, and is designed in part to recognize the country’s innovation and growing influence in the industry. ‘These Hollywood-based companies are among the best in the world, and their presence here shows the high regard they have for our creativity, story-telling and technological abilities,’ says Positively Wellington Business CEO Philip Lewin.

    ‘The global success of our film industry is driven by the talent of the people that work in it,’ adds IBM New Zealand’s managing director Katrina Troughton. ‘Increasingly, this includes those that develop and run the IT systems that bring film, television and games to life. Their innovation has put Kiwi film makers on the map and is providing an engine for growth in our economy.’

    AnimFXNZ is supported by the Los Angeles-based Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry’s only organization representing the full breadth of vfx practitioners in all areas of entertainment. Also lending a hand to the event are Academy Award-winning vfx supervisors Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop and Joe Letteri of Weta Digital. A full program list and registration details are now available at www.animfxnz.com.

  • Icon’s Virginia Grows Internationally

    Spain’s Icon Animation has announced a raft of post-MIPCOM sales for a number of its TV properties, including market headliner Lola & Virginia. These latest deals follow on the heels of MIPCOM sales to Spanish children’s broadcaster KITZ TV, which snapped more than 100 hours of programming from Icon Animation’s catalogue for its November launch.

    Lola & Virginia was acquired by Israel’s Noga Communication for its cable and satellite outlet The Children Channel. The show was also picked up by Portugal’s RTP for free broadcast and Canal Panda for pay TV. Canal Panda also made deals for Icon’s series Vitaminix (104×2), The Edebits (26×13), 64 Zoo Lane (52×11) and The Hydronauts (26×13), as well as the features Supertramps, Gulp! A Waste Side Story and Crab Island.

    A co-production between Icon Animation, Millimages, France 3, TV Catalunya and ETB, Lola & Virginia is based on an original concept by Myriam Ballesteros, who founded Icon Animation with Sergi Reitg. With a presence in television, mobile and publishing, the series has sold to broadcasters worldwide including Disney Channel and ETB in Spain. The show premiered in the U.S. last June and on Nickelodeon Latin America last July, and has also shown on France 3 and TV3. Additional sales have been made to Nickelodeon in France, Disney Channel in Italy and RCTV Venezuela. Icon Animation holds all distribution rights worldwide except for France, French speaking Switzerland, Benelux, the U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Australia and New Zealand, where the rights are held by Millimages.

    The property is supported by a licensing and merchandising strategy that includes a deal with Comercial Nim for Spain & Portugal. A publishing partnership is also in place with Grupo Edebe in Spain with ten illustrated books set to launch in October. In addition, Icon recently signed a mobile deal with Alvento for production and distribution of ring tones, games, images, screen savers and a WAP Portal for the girl-skewed brand.

  • DW Makes Plans for Puss, Aliens

    DreamWorks Animation has revised its strategy to release the upcoming Shrek spin-off Puss in Boots directly to video. The studio announced plans for a theatrical bow for the pic as it reported a profitable third-quarter driven by home video sales of Madagascar and pay TV sales of Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. DreamWorks also revealed its theatrical release slate for 2009, sending its original concept Monsters vs. Aliens to the top of the development heap for summer and following it with How to Train Your Dragon, based on the book by Cressida Cowell, in the fall.

    “Puss in Boots is a unique creative property that has the potential to be a valuable extension of the Shrek franchise,” says DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. “We are excited to be developing this into a feature film where we think it has the greatest opportunity.”

    Citing current market conditions, DreamWorks says it has decided to shift away from its direct-to-video strategy in favor of supporting new opportunities with Paramount and Nickelodeon. As previously reported, DreamWorks and Nickelodeon are developing a television series starring the penguin characters from Madagascar, as well as a weekly cartoon show based on the upcoming CG feature Kung Fu Panda.

    For the third quarter of 2006, DreamWorks Animation reported total revenue of $55.6 million and net income of $10.5 million. This compares to revenue of $87.1 million and net loss of $0.7 million for the same period in 2005. Madagascar contributed approximately $24.1 million of revenue, shipping around 20.4 million units on home video. Meanwhile, Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit kicked in around $17.2 million from sales in the domestic pay television market and shipped an estimated 5.1 million hoe video units during the quarter. Though it grossed around $325 at the box office, Over the Hedge contributed just $2.1 million in revenue for the period. The title was recently released on home video and is expected to be a major revenue driver for the company’s fourth quarter.

    Flushed Away, DreamWorks Animation’s latest collaboration with Aardman Animations, opens in theatres across North America this Friday, Nov. 3. Directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers, the adventure-comedy flick melds Aardman’s signature stop-motion style with computer animation and stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis and Bill Nighy.

  • Wachowski’s Give Gas to Speed Racer

    Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling duo behind the Matrix films, are pushing forward with plans to make a live-action feature based on the classic 1960s anime series Speed Racer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Talk of such a project has been circulating through Tinsel Town for more than a decade but now it appears it may actually happen with the Wachowskis officially attached to write and direct and their long-time collaborator Joel Silver committed to producing.

    Having served as producers on V for Vendetta, the Wachowskis will return to the directors chair for the first time since wrapping the Matrix trilogy in 2003. Among the Matrix alumni coming along for the ride are Oscar-winning vfx supervisor John Gaeta and exec producer Grant Hill.

    Like Tatsuo Yoshida’s beloved cartoon creation, the live-action Speed Racer will focus on a young man’s efforts to drive his high-tech Mach 5 to victory over the mysterious Racer X. Considering the cartoon has been popular for generations and is still watched by kids, the film adaptation will reportedly be more family-friendly than the Wachowskis’ previous action flicks. Shooting is scheduled to begin in 2007.

    If the project stays on track, Warner Bros., in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, will likely release Speed Racer in the summer of 2008.

  • Autodesk Debuts Toxik 2007 Creative Toolset

    Autodesk has unveiled the first creative tools extension for its Autodesk Toxik 2007 software. The toolset is designed to better facilitate the creation of feature-film visual effects with advanced features for image transforms, filtering and warping. Featuring 2D and 3D compositing tools and ability to manipulate high-resolution, high-dynamic range (HDR) imagery, Toxik has been used on such recent vfx-driven features as Silent Hill and The Fountain.

    Hollywood-based post-production facility Red Engine Productions recently adopted Toxik for its support and extension model. John Chalfant, partner and creative director, commented: “Red Engine is a new facility. We’ve built our workflow from the ground up, keeping in mind that we’ve got to be equipped for today’s projects and the demands of the future. Toxik’s capabilities grow regularly through extensions; it’s like having a multi-million dollar R&D department in-house.”

    Atlanta-based Turner Studios and Hollywood-based Asylum also recently purchased Toxik. In response to Hollywood’s growing interest in Toxik, Autodesk has expanded its customer support and reseller network. Toxik training is currently available at fxphd, the first Autodesk Training Center to offer courses online to artists around the world. For more information visit www.fxphd.com.

    Autodesk Toxik Extension 1 offers a new 2D Transform feature in addition to the software’s existing 3D Transform tool. This feature is based on distinct filtering techniques developed by Autodesk’s Image Science Group’a team of scientists dedicated to developing state-of-the-art image processing tools. The 2D Transform tool allows artists to move, scale and rotate an image while maintaining a superior level of accuracy and quality.

    Other key features in the extension include Lens Distort and Comparison tools. Lens Distort allows artists to correct or simulate lens distortion in a clip. Digital artists can quickly remove or adjust existing camera lens distortion, and apply lens distortion to computer-generated and other undistorted layers. In addition, the Autodesk Flame visual effects system’s Comparison feature is now included in Toxik. This feature allows artists to juxtapose images and easily examine results in context with reference frames or other nodes within a composition.

    Autodesk Toxik 2007 Extension 1 is currently available only to Autodesk subscription members for download from the Toxik portal. Autodesk Toxik 2007 can be purchased in single seats for $6,500, not including subscription. Subscription is no longer required with purchase and is available for a newly reduced price of $1,200. A full list of features offered in the first Autodesk Toxik 2007 extension is available at www.autodesk.com/toxik.

  • Turner Puts R.I.P on TCM

    Turner Ent. has commissioned a series of animated shorts titled R.I.P from Megafilms.net and has begun airing the first of 13 two-minute episodes on basic cable outlet Turner Classic Movies. Directed by Bruno Collet (Calypso Is Like So) and produced by Vivement Lundi, the stop-motion series is slated to debut on all TCM international channels by 2007.

    In R.I.P., a monster tries night after night to murder his roommate but always manages to fail. His incredibly understanding roommate then consoles him and lets him know what he’s doing wrong. The dialogue deficient series is likened to Warner Bros.’ classic Road Runner cartoons.

    The shorts are produced by Megafilms.net, a French company that creates animation, online games and children’s and factual programming. A web-based video game will be included in viral marketing efforts for R.I.P., the first episode of which is available for download at www.megafilms.net.

  • Halo a No-Go

    Contrary to previous statements, Microsoft is not marching onward with plans to produce a feature film based on its Halo video game franchise following the exit of co-financers Universal Pictures and 20 Century Fox. The film’s exec producers, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh of Wingnut Films, have announced that the film has been shelved until financing gets back on rack.

    Wingnut issued a statement that reads, ‘At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first-class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp’s vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait.

    Universal and Fox pulled out of the picture earlier this month over issues with the film’s budget and the amount of revenues earmarked for Microsoft and the filmmakers. Pre-production had already begun at Jackson’s New Zealand-based Weta Digital and Weta Workshop, but it appears the vfx shops will be focusing on other productions for the time being.

  • Reinseth Heads Development at Studio B

    Industry veteran Jillianne K. Reinseth has been appointed director of development for Studio B Prods. Inc. In the new role, she will head up the company’s new in-house content creation division, dubbed the B-HIVE, and develop projects from external pitches.

    ‘The B-HIVE is a fantastic opportunity for the staff and I am eager to continue the development of this creative initiative,’ comments Reinseth, whose career includes stints as development producer with broadcaster Jetix Europe, senior manager of creative Affairs at Walt Disney TV Animation and manager of original series for ABC Cable Networks Group (Disney Channel).

    ‘Studio B encourages pitches from internal staff on series ideas,’ adds Studio B partner Chris Bartleman. ‘Jillianne will work with our staff to further develop these concepts and produce animated shorts. We may use the shorts to pitch broadcasters and potential co-production partners around the world on a series and enter the finished work into film festivals. The opportunities are endless.’

    When a B-Hive project is selected for production, the creator is given his or her choice of role in making the short. A production team is assembled from the company’s up-and-coming talent, providing opportunities to take on new roles and to work with more experienced staff.

    Two animated shorts generated from staff ideas were showcased by Studio B at this year’s MIPCOM Junior. Storyboard supervisor Rob Boutielier created and directed Look What My Sister Dragged In, which was in the top 15 shows screened at the market. Meanwhile, Super Villain from the Pucca creative team of Kevin Long, Greg Sullivan, Jayson Thiessen, Dallas Parker and Kirsten Newlands was also well received.

    Vancouver-based Studio B’s award-winning shows include Being Ian, Class of the Titans, D’Myna Leagues Yvon of the Yukon and What About Mimi? The company’s international co-productions include George of the Jungle, Ricky Sprocket’Showbiz Boy, The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers!, Yakkity Yak and Something Else. Studio B also provides service work well-known companies including Jetix Europe (Pucca). The company is on the web at www.studiobproductions.com.