Animation Magazine

Author: Ryan Ball

  • Toon Boom Goes Solo for Indies

    Toon Boom Animation has released Toon Boom Solo, a new stand-alone animation software solution designed for small studios and independent animation filmmakers. The software package promises to simplify workflow and enhance creativity for traditional, digital or cut-out style animation for film, video, television, web sites, games and mobile applications.

    A start-to-finish animation tool, Toon Boom Solo allows artists to draw directly on the screen and carry the workflow through scanning, inking and painting, compositing, laying out animation in 3D space, applying special effects and rendering. Advanced features include morphing, inverse kinematics, glue and special effects.

    Designed to easily integrate into any existing pipelines running on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, Toon Boom Solo is expected to ship on Sept. 30, 2005. The package will include a DVD case and CD, a security key (dongle), keyboard shortcuts, tutorials and a two-volume user guide.

    Toon Boom recently won the 2005 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for its traditional animation sotware solution, US Animation Opus. The company’s other animation products include Toon Boom Harmony and Toon Boom Studio. Some of the high-profile productions completed with these tools include The Triplettes of Belleville, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Rugrats and SpongeBob SquarePants The Movie. For more information and a launch special on Toon Boom Solo, go to www.toonboom.com.

  • Get Ed on Toon Disney

    Get Ed, a new CG-animated action series from Walt Disney Television Animation, debuts on Toon Disney Monday, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. (ET/PT). The series of 26 half-hour episodes will also air on ABC Family starting Saturday, Sept. 24, at 9 a.m. Get Ed is joined in the fall Jetix lineup by new seasons of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, W.I.T.C.H. and Power Rangers.

    Get Ed follows the adventures of a cybersleuth genetically created from an ancient artifact. Ed works at a futuristic messenger service in Progress City, where he foils identity thefts and solves other information-based crimes. Ed and his four best friends at Dojo Deliveries arrive just in time to take on the evil Bedlam, who seeks to control all information and become an unstoppable force.

    The series is created by award-winning director Andy Knight (Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas), founder of Toronto-based Red Rover, which produces Get Ed in association with Walt Disney Television Animation. Knight also created and exec produced the FOX Kids’ animated series Ned’s Newt and Pig City, and was involved in Comedy Central’s Bob and Margaret and Sylvain Chomet’s Oscar-nominated animated feature, The Triplets of Belleville.

  • Dragon Booster Flies to France, Spain

    Alliance Atlantis Communications has secured broadcast deals with TF1 in France and Telecinco in Spain for its CG-animated children’s property, Dragon Booster. The series will launch on TF1 Sept. 21, and Telecinco in January of 2006.

    Conceived by The Story Hat, Dragon Booster takes place in a world where humans and dragons co-exist and dragon racing is a popular sport. The show follows the adventures of Artha Penn, an ordinary teenager who is charged with saving the world when he is chosen to ride Beaucephalis, the dragon of legend.

    Dragon Booster has already launched on ABC Family/Toon Disney in the U.S., CBC and VRAK TV in Canada, BSKYB and Five in the U.K. and ABC TV in Australia. The show most recently debuted on Jetix, Latin America this month. On the marketing side, Alliance Atlantis has granted a worldwide master toy license to JAKKS Pacific, and has lined up deals with Konami for videogames, Hyperion Books for Children for publishing, and Extreme Concepts for apparel.

    Based in Toronto, Canada, Alliance Atlantis Communications (www.allianceatlantis.com) is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a specialty broadcaster. The company co-produces and distributes a limited number of television programs, including the hit CSI franchise, in Canada and internationally. It also holds a 51% limited partnership interest in Motion Picture Distribution LP, one of Canada’s leading motion picture distribution entities.

  • UTV To Animate Kong for BKN

    In a deal worth $10 million, New York-based BKN New Media Inc. has outsourced animation to India’s UTV Toonz, the animation division of UTV Software Communications Ltd. Initial productions included under the pact are Kong–The Next Generation and another 26-episode, 3D-animated series yet to be named.

    UTV Toonz has also acquired distribution, licensing and merchandising rights to such BKN animation series as Legend of the Dragon, Roswell Conspiracies, Starla and the Jewel Riders, Skipper & Skeeto and Ali Baba Forty Thieves. Some shows will air on UTV’s kids channel, Hungama TV.

    ‘We aim to, in a year, have the largest order book for an animation company in India, and our deal with BKN is one step further in that direction," says UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala. "In animation, we market UTV, as well as India, as a destination and we believe there is a tremendous scope for our growth in this segment."

    BKN is taking full advantage of the hype surrounding Peter Jackson’s upcoming big-screen remake of King Kong. Allen J. Bohbot, CEO of BKN International, states, "BKN has made King Kong a major centerpiece of our company’s expansive original animation slate, and we look forward to embarking on the production of Kong–The Next Generation series and the Kong II: Return to the Jungle feature film with UTV, one of India’s and the industry’s largest and most prolific 3D studios". BKN recently signed a number of licensing deals with partners in the U.S. for other Kong properties.

  • Lions Gate Pens Peppa Pig for Video

    Lions Gate’s Family Entertainment (LGFE) has acquired the exclusive North American home video distribution rights for Contender Group’s Peppa Pig, an animated series that recently launched on Cartoon Network’s new Tickle U block for preschoolers. The first home video release is slated for the fall of 2006.

    Peppa Pig centers on a mischievous pig and her family as they encounter everyday challenges and adventures. The show debuted in the U.K. on FIVE and Nick Jr in June of 2004, and has been broadcast in more than 90 countries worldwide. Awards include Best Pre-school Series and Best European Program of the Year at the 2005 Cartoons on the Bay and the Cristal for Best TV Production at Annecy 2005.

    The series is created by Mark Baker and Neville Astley, and produced by Phil Davies. Baker and Astley have been collaborating since 1994 on commercials, title sequences, short films and the award-winning BBC television series The Big Knights. Baker’s short films, The Hill Farm, The Village and Jolly Roger, have all been nominated for Oscars, while Astley’s short, Trainspotter, was nominated for a BAFTA and won the Edinburgh Festival’s McLaren Award. Phil Davies’ recent credits as producer include the BAFTA nominated Six of One, as well as Donkey Town, Emma 18 and Home.

    Under the terms of the deal, LGFE holds the rights to the show’s 52 existing five-minute animated episodes and 52 additional installments in production. The property joins LGFE’s stable of prominent family brands, which includes Mattel’s hugely successful Barbie video franchise and the TV favorites Clifford the Big Red Dog, Clifford’s Puppy Days and Maya & Miguel from Scholastic and Nelvana’s Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends. LGFE will also release the second direct-to-video Care Bears feature, The Care Bears Big Wish Movie, on Oct. 18., and a second Mega Blocks feature on Oct. 25.

  • Grave Romance Rules Weekend

    Tim Burton’s latest animated tour de force, Corpse Bride, proved to be the film to beat in limited release over the weekend, earning an estimated $411,000 in only 5 theaters. However, another film about a guy falling for a dead woman took the top spot as DreamWorks’ supernatural love story, Just like Heaven, conjured up approximately $16.5 million.

    Corpse Bride averaged an impressive $82,200 per venue, greatly outpacing fellow gradual rollouts The Thing about My Folks from Picture House, Proof from Miramax, Thumbsucker from Sony Pictures Classics, Everything is Illuminated from Warner Independent Pictures and Separate Lies from Fox Searchlight.

    The closest competitor in terms of theater averages was the Gwyneth Paltrow indie, Proof, which managed an estimated $25,000 in each of its 8 locations for a total of just over $200,000. The early enthusiasm for Burton’s gothic stop-motion romantic comedy bodes well for the film’s prospects as it goes into wide release on Friday, Sept. 23.

    Starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, Just like Heaven tells the story of lonely architect who moves into a new apartment and strikes up an unusual romance with the ghost of its former occupant. Vfx houses Big Red Pixel, Hammerhead and Pacific Title contributed to the film’s digital trickery. The film finished just ahead of last week’s box office champ, Sony Screen Gems’ The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which drops a notch to No. 2 with just north of $15 million.

    Lions Gate’s Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage, opened at No. 3 with a disappointing estimate of $9.2 million. Meanwhile, five-week holdover The 40-Year-Old Virgin from Universal hit the $90 million mark as it beat out new arrival Cry Wolf for fourth place. The college slasher flick from Rogue Pictures rounds out the top five with around $4.5 million.

  • Muffin the Mule Comics in Peak’s Future

    Peak Ent. has licensed the recently revived British cartoon classic, Muffin the Mule, to Future Publishing for a line of comic books slated to hit U.K. newsstands in October. Future will distribute an estimated 100,000 copies with a cover-mounted promotional Muffin the Mule toy every three weeks for a two-year period.

    Celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2006, Muffin the Mule originally aired on BBC in the 1940s and ’50s. Peak Ent. acquired the preschool property from Maverick Ent. earlier this year and launched the new, modern adaptation on BBC’s children’s portal, CBBC on Sept. 5. According to Peak, the producers have worked closely with the BBC to retain the original show’s core values of fun, friendship and loyalty.

    “Partnering with Future Publishing, one of the UK’s fastest growing news stand publishers, will enable Peak to penetrate a widely untapped audience,” comments Peak managing director Phil Ogden. “We are pleased to have this agreement in place with such a high profile partner and believe with the successful launch of Muffin the Mule, this agreement could contribute as much as $250,000 in marketing spend and provide significant revenues to Peak and its partners.”

    Peak’s other properties include Monster Quest, The Wumblers, Little Big Feet, Countin’ Sheep and Snailsbury’s Tails. For more information, go www.peakentertainment.net.

  • Kids’ WB! Unleashes Loonatics

    The futuristic descendants of classic Warner Bros. animated characters turn out to be wisecracking superheroes in Loonatics Unleashed, the controversial new cartoon launching this weekend as part of Kids’ WB!’s all-new Saturday morning lineup. Also from Warner Bros. Animation come the zany comedy, Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island, and the secret-agent kid show, Johnny Test.

    Loonatics Unleashed is set 700 years in the future and stars Ace Bunny, Lexi Bunny, Danger Duck, Slam Tasmanian, Rev Runner and Tech E. Coyote as the fearless defenders of Acmetropolis. Each possesses special powers that help them deal with supernatural phenomena and such ominous villains as a nefarious carnival barker, a gravity-defying professional thief and giant Viking robots from another dimension. The show is produced by Warner Bros. Animation under the guidance of exec producer Sander Schwartz, Emmy Award-nominated producer Ron Myrick, story editor Rick Copp and creative execs Christopher Keenan and Megan Casey. Viewers can catch the debut at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.

    Debuting Saturday at 8:30 a.m., Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island takes viewers to the silliest spot in the Seven Seas, where the energetic and eternally optimistic Coconut Fred (Rob Paulsen) and his fresh crop of cohorts have adventures in their tropical paradise. Tailor-made for fans of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, the show has its title character tormenting a grumpy watermelon named Mr. Greenrind with crazy schemes such as starting his own newspaper and becoming a lifeguard. The series is created by Don Orlolo and Sammy Oriti, and exec. produced by Sander Schwartz. Producers are Margaret M. Dean and Aaron Simpson, and creative execs are Christopher Keenan, Kim Christianson and Stan Ruiz.

    Johnny Test, premiering at 10 a.m., centers on the always-eager experimental team of Johnny and his genetically enhanced dog, Dukey. Johnny serves as a guinea pig for his twin prodigy inventor sisters, Mary and Susan, who outfit him with an endless supply of cool gadgets as he combats the evil schemes of spoiled rich kid Eugene Hamilton, a.k.a. Blng-Bling Boy. Johnny Test is created and produced by Scott Fellows, exec produced by Sander Schwartz and Loris Kramer Lunsford, and overseen by creative execs Kim Christianson and Amy Wagner.

    The Kids’ WB! fall season also features new episodes of Saturday morning favorites Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Xiaolin Showdown and The Batman. The 26 new Batman adventures will include the appearance of new villains and the introduction of Batgirl. Fans can catch it at 7:30 a.m.

  • Corpse Bride Haunts N.Y., L.A.

    Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated romantic musical comedy, Corpse Bride, opens today in a handful of theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Co-directed by Mike Johnson, the film has been receiving high marks from critics and should generate health box office when it opens nationwide on Friday, Sept. 23.

    Based on a 19th century Eastern European folk tale, Corpse Bride stars Oscar nominee Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sleepy Hollow) as the voice of Victor, a young man who is about to be wed when he is whisked away to the underworld and married to the mysterious Corpse Bride, voiced by Helena Bonham-Carter (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit). Frightened of her at first, Victor warms up to his departed spouse and finds himself torn between two worlds. Emily Watson (Equilibrium, Punch Drunk Love) provides the voice of Victoria, Victor’s fiancée who pines away for him in the land of the living.

    Corpse Bride was animated in England under animation supervisor Anthony Scott, who worked with Burton on his 1993 stop-mo opus, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The puppet armatures were machined by Merrick Cheney, and fabricators Mackinnon & Saunders in Manchester, England, crafted mechanical heads that allowed the animators to bring more expression and fluid lip sync to the characters. And while the majority of the feature was done with stop-motion, The Moving Picture Co. added some CG elements here and there.

    Read more about the making of Corpse Bride in the September issue of Animation Magazine, and check out our reactions to the movie at www.animationmagazine.net/article.php?article_id=4474.

  • Art to Imitate Wildlife with Tortoise and Hippo

    Daily Variety reports that Shrek co-writer Roger S.H. Schulman has been attached to script a film based on the unlikely, real-life relationship between a 100-year-old tortoise and a baby hippo residing in an Indian wildlife sanctuary. Walden Media optioned the pitch from Relevant Ent.’s Mike Menchel, who was inspired by a wire-service photo of the mismatched pair of critters.

    Tentatively titled Tortoise and Hippo, the film will blend photo-realistic CG animation with live-action footage, much like Walden’s upcoming adaptation of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web for Paramount Pictures and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for Disney.

    The real-life animals struck up an unusual relationship after the young hippo was rescued from the Indian Ocean following the devastating tsunami that hit Indonesia and the surrounding area in December of this year.

    Shulman’s script will reportedly paint the tortoise as a cranky, old reptile who uses the newcomer as a chick magnet but soon becomes a father figure to the hippo as they undertake a perilous journey back to Africa.

    Menchel will produce the film while his Relevant partner Jonathan Baruch, oversees with Walden execs Alex Schwartz, Jackie Levine and Jared Mass. According to the trade, a distribution deal probably won’t be made until a master toy licensee is on board. A publishing deal has already been struck between Relevant and Penguin Books’ kid lit imprint, Grosset/Dunlap.

  • Nintendo Unveils Revolution Controller

    Delivering the keynote speech yesterday at the annual Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discussed the new controller for the Nintendo Revolution next-generation gaming console. The one-handed interface looks more like a TV remote than a game controller, but Nintendo is confident that it will revolutionize the gaming experience.

    “The feeling is so natural and real, as soon as players use the controller, their minds will spin with the possibilities of how this will change gaming as we know it today,” Iwata stated. “This is an extremely exciting innovation, one that will thrill current players and entice new ones.”

    The new controller is designed to be more intuitive than the traditional, two-handed variety. When pointed at the screen and moved around, the wireless unit relays motion, depth, positioning and targeting information to the console. It also allows for a variety of expansions, including a "nunchuk" style analog unit. And since the Revolution will allow gamers to play titles from the NES, SNES, N64 and Nintendo GameCube generations, the controller promises to bring a new element to the company’s library of classic games.

    Nintendo says response from all major publishers worldwide has been extremely positive. The new controller allows third party developers the flexibility to use as many or as few of the controller features as they see fit.

    “Game control is essential–it’s the area where perhaps the most gameplay improvement can be made,” says John Schappert, senior VP and general manager of Electronic Arts Canada. “While our portfolio represents a full array of titles across all genres, I think our sports titles might be the first to immediately take advantage of what this novel ‘freehand’ type of control has to offer.”

    Nintendo is currently riding high on the phenomenal success of its Nintendogs, a virtual pet title recently released for the Nintendo DS handheld device. The company has sold more than 1.5 million units of the software in Japan and North America. More information on the game and Nintendo in general, go to www.nintendo.com.

  • Wallace & Gromit Hit the X Mobile Spot

    It’s the mobile game puzzler, Gromit! Just in time for the opening of their big DreamWorks feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the popular Aardman characters will also be making a splash in the mobile game world courtesy of the folks at Player X.

    Created for Player X by Frontier Developments, the game is a top-down 2D puzzler which will be available during the first week of October, coinciding with the Oct. 7 opening of the new feature. Although Wallace & Gromit have sold more than 30 million units of licensed merchandise all over the world, this will be the plasticine duo’s first venture into the wireless arena.

    Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit will be available across Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and 3 and all major Scandinavian operators in Europe, Cingular in the U.S., major Latin American markets and Asian territories including Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and Japan.

    "We love working with major brands and they don’t come bigger than Wallace & Gromit," says Tony Pearce, CEO of Player X. "It’s been a privilege to bring this content to a global audience and we’re convinced we have put this game in places other companies cannot reach."

    Directed by Nick Park and Steve Box, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit finds the clever dog and his mild-mannered master involved in a giant vegetable growing contest and a mysterious rabbit with a supernatural affliction. Aardman regular Peter Sallis (the voice of Wallace) is joined by British thesps Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter, who portray a pair of aristocrats in the movie. Pick up the October issue of Animation Magazine for a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this clay-animated epic.

  • Danny Phantom Special Materializes Friday

    It’s back-to-school time for Danny Fenton, Butch Hartman’s young ghost buster who is also part apparition himself. In Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy, a new hour-long special scheduled to air on Nickelodeon Friday, Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), our hero takes on Eric Roberts (TV’s Less Than Perfect, HBO’s Spawn) as the voice of Danny’s most powerful adversary. David Carradine (Kill Bill Vo. 2, TV’s Kung Fu) also guest stars.

    When hitting the books and tackling specters proves too much for Danny, he decides to cheat on his Career Aptitude Test and risks turning to the dark side forever. When a group of Ghost Zone inhabitants known as The Observants sees a disturbing change in the boy, they send a time-controlling ghost named Clockwork (Carradine) to Amity Park to get him back on the right path before he’s defeated by "The Ultimate Enemy."

    Leading up to the special’s debut, young fans have been going to Nick.com to play The Danny Phantom Ultimate Enemy Face-Off, a game that allows players to create their own ghosts and compete online with others. This week, Nickelodeon has been randomly selecting contestant ghosts to be featured on air.

    Creator/exec producer Hartman wrote and directed episodes of Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow & Chicken and Johnny Bravo before moving to Nickelodeon with Oh Yeah! Cartoons! and his own creation, The Fairly OddParents. Danny Phantom is produced at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, Calif.

  • Warner Bros. Adapting The Losers Comics

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has tapped writer/director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Very Bad Things) to script and possibly direct an adaptation of the DC-Vertigo graphic novel series The Losers. Berg will also produce the film, along with Academy Award-wining scribe Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, Batman Forever).

    The Losers, a band of American soldiers on a quest to find out who betrayed them and left them for dead, first appeared in the 1970s in DC Comics’ WWII series G.I Combat and Our Fighting Forces. Comic scribe Andy Diggle and artists Jock and Ben Oliver recently resurrected and modernized the property for DC’s Vertigo line.

    Co-producing for Berg’s Film 44 are Sarah Aubrey and John Cameron, along with Kerry Foster of Goldsman’s Weed Road. Warner Bros. execs Dan Lin and Matt Reilly are overseeing for the studio. Overseeing for DC Comics is Gregory Noveck.

    Berg will tackle similar subject matter as he adapts the hugely successful video game Tom Clancey’s Splinter Cell for the big screen. Also on his directorial plate are Universal’s political thriller, The Kingdom, and Universal/Working Title’s Bran Mak Morn, based on the works of Conan the Barbarian author Robert E. Howard.

  • VES Gets Date for Awards

    The Visual Effects Society (VES) announced that the 4th Annual VES Awards presentation will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Hollywood Palladium. Submissions of projects to be considered are now being accepted online at www.vesawards.com through December 2.

    The VES Awards recognize outstanding visual and special effects in 21 categories for film, television, animation, music videos, video games and commercials. Two new categories for games have been added this year including Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game and Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game.

    A panel of nominating judges will view and vote on submissions on Jan. 7, and nominations will be announced on Jan. 9. Nominees will then be invited to give an in-person presentation of their materials during The Big Reveal bake-off on Jan. 21. VES members will be able to vote online from Jan. 25 through Feb. 10.

    Headed by exec director Eric Roth, the Visual Effects Society is a professional, honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of visual effects, while improving the welfare of its members. Comprised of a diverse group of approximately 1,250 global members, the VES strives to enrich and educate its own members and members of the entertainment community at large through domestic and international events.

  • Alias’ Creative Bridge Spans CAD, Marketing

    Alias today introduced Alias Creative Bridge, a services program designed to help senior business managers and marketing professionals use design and engineering data in their efforts to develop branded materials in significantly less time and on increasingly tighter budgets.

    Creative Bridge is designed to reduce production costs and speed time to market by streamlining the content creation pipeline and allowing companies to quickly iterate, adapt and re-purpose design and engineering assets. The program also aims to help marketing efforts cost-effectively operate outside of physical limitations through 3D art assets and compel consumers with new types of interactive digital experiences.

    Services included under Creative Bridge range from the initial design and planning stage to the implementation stage, in which Alias professionals function as a seamless resource for CAD file preparation, virtual model assembly, data repair and optimization, and ad/creative agency liaison.

    Alias services offered to support the deployment of a Creative Bridge pipeline include training, workflow consulting/pipeline design, virtual asset management and program management.

    "In today’s competitive marketing environment, forward-thinking companies should strive to attain an intuitive visualization pipeline to help tell their story, taking 3D design and engineering assets to compelling sales and marketing tools" comments Ashim Bose, director of transportation projects and services for Alias’ global customer services. "Digital marketing efforts represent a means to drive even deeper levels of customer engagement, as they often operate outside of the physical limitations of photography, film, hand illustration, and 2D software."

    The custom professional assistance offered through the Creative Bridge program is part of a broad suite of services available through Alias’ global customer services division. Others include custom training, support, engineering, production services and pipeline optimization targeted to both entertainment and design customers. More information is available at www.alias.com.

  • Mr. Wonderful Vfx Opens in New York

    Industry veterans David Gioiella and Mark Littman have launched Mr. Wonderful, a New York City-based design and visual effects offshoot of their Northern Lights Post boutique. Under the supervision of creative director Beirne Lowry and producer Damien Henderson, the new entity will provide broadcast design, feature film and television projects.

    "We felt the time was right to expand and spin off a new entity," adds Gioiella. "We have the strategic insight, abilities and talent to do high-caliber design work and we want clients, existing and new, to feel they can come to us for their specific project needs."

    Mr. Wonderful will initially share space with Northern Lights Post, but will be marketed separately and will eventually move into its own office. The entity will also tap Northern Lights talent for its service projects.

    "We are committed to providing cutting-edge and smart solutions whether the project involves conventional or nontraditional forms of design, animation and visual effects," says Lowry. "Our role is to serve as a resource and collaborator to our clients helping them develop a distinctive visual language."

    Lowry served for 16 years as creative director of Betelgeuse Prods. and its design division, Betsy. His credits include graphics and promo packages for VH1’s My Coolest Years, ABC’s Monday Night Football, CBS Sports, Comedy Central, Oxygen and ESPN, as well as ABC Figure Skating and The Super Bowl, which earned him multiple Emmy Awards for Outstanding Graphic Design in 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2004.

    Henderson worked with Lowry at Betsy, most recently serving as co-exec producer. Previous jobs include a stint in live-action production at The Farm, and various freelance gigs as an editor and motion graphics artist.

    In addition to Lowry and Henderson, the Mr. Wonderful team will include senior editor/designer Ross Shain, flame/smoke artist Christopher Harrison and smoke artist Michael Palermo. "The artists and creative directors at Mr. Wonderful have such diverse backgrounds, we can offer new and innovative flows of information, "Henderson comments. "We have a large team of people available for these projects, including live-action directors who can supervise and shoot. We feel it is important to find different avenues for broadcast design."

    Mr. Wonderful created the entire show open, packaging elements and end credits for the new season of the popular MTV series Super Sweet 16. Other initial projects include a new Reese’s Puffs Cereal commercial for ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi/New York and branding for a field sports programming block on Outdoor Life Network. To promote the network’s coverage of AVP Volleyball, the studio produced the show open and branding elements in which video footage of actual players graphically morphs into 3D animation. More information on the company can be found at www.mrwonderful.tv.

  • Bunny Parodies Hoppin’ on Starz

    Having built a strong following on the web, Jennifer Shiman’s 30-second, animated bunny reenactments of popular movies hit cable television as a Starz On Demand offering on April 1. Since it’s launch, the Flash-animated property has generated more than 1.6 million viewings, according to Starz Entertainment Group LLC.

    Featuring all-bunny casts, Shiman’s shorts boil down such iconic films as Jaws, Pulp Fiction, The Shining and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, retelling their stories as bite-sized comedies. Parodies of horror films have been the most popular by far. The rabbit reenactment of Freddy vs. Jason was viewed 316,000 times in five months.

    “The popularity of the bunny shorts on Starz On Demand is one of the clearest early indicators that on demand is a very different medium than linear channels,” says Bill Hoagland, VP of On Demand for Starz Entertainment Group. “With on demand, it is possible to air programming of any length instead of trying to shoehorn everything into half-hour or hour slots, and allows the viewer to sample programming that might be unavailable or overlooked on the linear channels.”

    Hoagland notes that hundreds of thousands of the bunny shorts have also been viewed as part of the two-minute file packages that now air before and after mainstream movies ordered through Starz On Demand. Viewers who liked what they saw were then able to look for more parodies in the "Quickies" section. "In May, 2005, four of the bunny spots collectively were viewed more than any individual movie title, attesting to their popularity,” he adds.

    Other hit films tackled with the bunny formula include Scream, Titanic, The Exorcist, Alien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and It’s a Wonderful Life. They can all be downloaded at the Angry Alien Prods. website, www.angryalien.com.

  • Yoram Gross, Magna Pacific in DVD Pact

    Yoram Gross-EM.TV, one of Australia’s largest animation studios, has signed a five-year licensing deal with Magna Pacific, one of the largest independent DVD distributors down under. The pact covers 18 feature films and 20 TV series, including the animated favorites The Adventures of Blinky Bill, Skippy, Dot and the Kangaroo and Bambaloo.

    Through this latest deal to come out of the Joint Venture between Yoram Gross-EM.TV and Gaffney International Licensing, Magna Pacific will first release three triple-disc box sets: The Adventures of Blinky Bill–Season 1, Bambaloo Box Set 1 and Dot and the Kangaroo Box Set. The company will also distribute single-episode DVDs featuring half-hour installments of Bambaloo and Blinky Bill on an affordable, mini-size format.

    Established by Yoram and Sandra Gross in 1968, Yoram Gross first made international headlines in 1977 with the production of Australia’s first animated feature film, Dot and the Kangaroo. Featuring the studio’s trademark technique of animating characters over live-action background footage, the film was successful enough to spawn eight sequels over the following 17 years.

    Yoram Gross expanded into television in 1992 with Blinky Bill, followed by Tabaluga, a co-production with EM.TV & Merchandising AG that became the top-rated children’s show in Germany in 1998. The animated series Skippy and Flipper and Lopaka followed shortly after.

  • Editor’s Note: Warmed Over by Corpse Bride

    Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I love stop-motion animation. As someone who grew up on Rankin & Bass holiday specials and such iconic films as the original King Kong and Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad series, I’m hopelessly in love with the unique style created by moving articulated puppets in tiny increments and capturing them on film (or video) one frame at a time. And as an amateur practitioner of the art, I fully appreciate the care and skill that went into making the gorgeous spectacle that is Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.

    While the film has Burton’s stamp all over it, much of the credit goes to his co-director, Mike Johnson, who was the one in the trenches day in and day out while Burton was overseeing production on Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Johnson and his crew, led by animation supervisor Anthony Scott, have done an impeccable job of bringing these characters to life, even though most of them are dead.

    Based on a 19th century Eastern European folk tale, Corpse Bride stars Oscar nominee Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sleepy Hollow) as the voice of Victor, a young man who is about to be wed when he is whisked away to the underworld and married to the mysterious Corpse Bride, voiced by Helena Bonham-Carter (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit). Frightened of her at first, Victor warms up to his departed spouse and finds himself torn between two worlds. Emily Watson (Equilibrium, Punch Drunk Love) provides the voice of Victoria, Victor’s fiancée who pines away for him in the land of the living.

    Corpse Bride is drawing comparisons to Burton’s 1993 stop-motion holiday classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick. However, it’s difficult to fairly compare the two since Nightmare was more ambitious in its scope and more grandiose in its presentation. Jack Skellington’s theatrical entrance is still one of the best in film history, though the "unveiling" of the Corpse Bride character is a goosebump-inducing achievement as well. Less Broadway than Nightmare, Corpse Bride plays more like an Edgar Allan Poe yarn brought to the screen with musical numbers and a healthy dose of whimsical humor. The sets are beautifully constructed but provide more intimate settings than the wondrous world of Holloween Town created for Nightmare.

    If I have one gripe about the film, it’s that I would like to have seen more development in Victor’s relationships with both Victoria and the Corpse Bride. There are some nice moments between the characters, but I felt a little more was needed to really motivate Victor’s actions. But the movie is called Corpse Bride and the title character truly carries the film on her bony shoulders. I really felt for her and couldn’t help but fall in love with her, despite her skeletal extremities, the exposed ribs and the maggot that dwells in her eye socket.

    Corpse Bride is a feast for the eyes and ears. Cinematographer Pete Kozachick’s rich digital photography combines with Danny Elfman’s moving score and rousing songs to create a first-class entertainment experience that plays as well to adults as it does children. Younger kids may even be frightened by some scenes, hence the PG rating.

    Above all, Corpse Bride is a stunning achievement in animation. My hat is off to the skilled artists who put their blood, sweat and tears into this production. It’s great to see that the art of stop-motion animation is not only alive and well, but looking better than ever.

    Go behind the scenes with director Mike Johnson and animation supervisor Anthony Scott in the September issue of Animation Magazine.

    Credited animators:

    Phil Dale

    Brian Demoskoff

    Drew Lightfoot

    Charlotte Worsaae

    Pete Dodd

    Jo Chalkley

    Mark Waring

    Anthony Farquhar-Smith

    Malcolm Lamont

    Chris Stenner

    Brad Schiff

    Tim Watts

    Jason Stalman

    Brian Hansen

    Matt Palmer

    Chris Tichborne

    Tim Allen

    Tobias Fouracre

    Trey Thomas

    Jens Johnathan Gulliksen

    Antony Elworthy

    Mike Cottee

    Stefano Cassini

    Chris Tootell