October 1- 8, 2000 News

Sunday, October 1, 2000

"The Lost World" Animated Series in the Works
Publivision Inc. announced the conclusion of an $11.5 million co-production agreement between its animation subsidiary, Vivatoon Ltée, and Neuroplanet France, to produce a new animated series entitled "The Lost World." Inspired by the novel "The Lost World" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the father of Sherlock Holmes and the Jules Verne of early 20th-century English literature, this science fiction series consisting of 26 episodes of 26 minutes each targets young people ages 9 to 12.

In a work originally written for adults, Vivatoon and Neuroplanet France have introduced characters who are 10 and 12 years old. The co-producers thereby hope to introduce the young public to one of the great classics of modern literature, bringing to the screen the adventures of Lord John Roxton, in a world where science, adventure and tolerance stimulate the characters.

Moreover, "The Lost World" animated series will provide young people with "captivating role models they can identify with, while promoting values that include loyalty, friendship, self-confidence, going beyond one's limitations, a taste for adventure, openness to others and non-violence," according to the producers.

Monday, October 2, 2000

New Animated DVD Releases for Tomorrow
The following animated and anime DVDs will be released tomorrow:

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) - Disney
The Black Cauldron (1985) - Disney
Cartoon Crazys: Comic Book Heroes
Cartoon Crazy's Spooky Toons
Escaflowne - Dragons and Destiny (Vol. 1 - 1996)
James and the Giant Peach - Special Edition (1996)
Jubei-Chan the Ninja Girl Vol 02
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Special Edition (1993)
The Nightmare Before Christmas/James and the Giant Peach (2 Pack)
Scooby Doo & Alien Invaders (2000)

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BBC News Discusses Animation Oscar Category
According to BBC News:

"An Oscar for feature-length animations is to be established for the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced.

The new category, the first for almost 20 years, will cover animated features of more than 70 minutes, giving Disney films and the feature film work of Nick Park, who made Chicken Run, the chance of Oscar success.

The first Oscar for animation is likely to be presented at the Academy Awards ceremony in March 2002. But the award will only be handed out when eight or more eligible films are released a year, which could be mean the statuette for animation is seen rarely..."

Click here for the full story.

Tuesday, October 3, 2000

Box Office Results for Animated Films
Here are the Box Office results for last weekend's animated films:

Chicken Run
$200,996 ($388 per screen average - 31% drop)
32nd at the Box Office (down from #28 last weekend)
Total to Date: $105.5 Million

Pokemon 2000
$64,496 ($223 per screen average - 43% drop)
50th at the Box Office (down from #40 last weekend)
Total to Date: $43.7 Million

Dinosaur
$61,092 ($407 per screen average - 45% decrease)
51st at the Box Office (down from #42 last weekend)
Total to Date: $136.5 Million

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Cartoon Girl Plays Influencial Role
According to The Times:

"She is eight and speaks more than a dozen languages, yet the world's most powerful child welfare agency is about to turn her into a domestic labourer.

Meena, a cartoon character, is a key weapon in the battle against female and social inequality across the Indian subcontinent.

For the past two years children in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have followed the 13 video and storybook adventures of South Asia's longest-suffering pre-teen as she and her best friend, Mithu, a talking parrot, tackle social issues such as child marriage, illegal dowry demands and parents refusing to send daughters to school. Even Aids has touched Meena's carefully anonymised "Everytown" life, where the names are neither Hindu nor Muslim.

Now the United Nations children's agency Unicef, which created Meena, has decided it is time for her to meet stiffer challenges..."

Click here for the full story.

Wednesday, October 4, 2000

CyberWorld 3D Opens Friday!
The highly anticipated IMAX 3D animated film, CyberWorld 3D, opens this Friday in IMAX theaters across the nation. The adventure lasts for 45-minutes and requires that audience members wear special 3D glasses.

The 84-page CyberWorld 3D Teachers Guide recommends seven sites for students to learn more about animation, with Animation Artist Magazine being one of the seven sites featured (others include Warner Brothers site and the official site for SIGGRAPH).

Also opening this Friday is Digimon: The Movie, which may have trouble finding its audience because of its PG rating. Parents have largely ignored PG rated animated features in the past two years, including the highly acclaimed The Iron Giant. Fox is copying Warner Brothers marketing efforts by offering free trading cards to those who see Digimon in its opening weekend.

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Spriggan Goes on Tour
ADV Films is has announced the fourth-quarter film festival run of their latest animated movie, Spriggan.

On a fragment of a message plate, a warning from an ancient civilization that was ruined by over-development was written. It says, "Protect our legacy from evil." Arcam is an organization, which takes this message seriously and plays an active part in trying to seal the secret of the ancient civilization whose remains are scattered around the world. The agents in the organization are called SPRIGGAN.

Due for wide release in 2001, Spriggan will be playing, with English subtitles, at the following places:

October 8, 2000 - Spriggan will be shown at the Director's Guild of America Theatre, during the New York Anime Film Festival. The festival will be held in New York City, from October 6th though the 8th.

October 22, 2000 - Spriggan will be shown at the AFI (American Film Institute) Festival, in Los Angeles, California, during the Asian Cinema Series Gala.

12th Annual International Film Festival of Wales going on from November 29, 2000 to December 9, 2000 in Europe at Wales' capital city.

The original Spriggan story was created by Chu Takasige and Ryoji Minagawa, part of the "Post-Otomo Generation." Spriggan appeared serially in the monthly magazine "Zokan Shonen Sunday" from 1989 to 1996. Paperback copies also sold 6 million copies.

Thursday, October 5, 2000

China Tries to Become a Cartoon Making Power
According to the Star Telegram and AP:

"In the struggle for the hearts and minds of China's children, Han Fengfang is a warrior with a fountain pen.

Han's post is at a drafting table at the Shanghai Animation Studio. In slow, sure strokes on clear plastic, the 25-year veteran artist draws one more frame of a new cartoon. Then she starts the next, inching the studio closer to its goal: a place alongside Walt Disney Co. and other leaders of the global animation industry.

Cartoons are serious business for China -- both a promising export and a tool to turn back a flood of imported children's pop culture that stirs deep unease among communist leaders who look on entertainment as an ideological tool..."

Click here to read the full story.

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Teacher's Pet Premieres Tonight on Disney Channel
The premiere episode of "Disney's Teacher's Pet" animated series will air tonight on Disney Channel at 8:45 p.m. ET/PT. On Friday, October 6, Toon Disney will spotlight "Disney's Teacher's Pet" with a four-episode "marathon" from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, "Disney's Teacher's Pet" is the tale of a boy and his dog, "Spot" -- a talking canine that yearns for the education afforded his master. As voiced by Tony Award-winning actor Nathan Lane, Spot disguises himself as a boy in order to attend school and, as the title suggests, becomes the teacher's pet. "Teacher's Pet" is designated as children's educational and informational programming.

"Teacher's Pet" is a production of Walt Disney Television Animation. Gary Baseman is creator and executive producer. Bill & Cheri Steinkellner are creators and executive producers. Michael Price is co-executive producer. Timothy Bjorklund is director.

Friday, October 6, 2000

Wild Life Takes Wild Ride
Disney's Wild Life animated feature has apparently been canned according to an Inside Magazine article, which states the film was canceled because it was "not appropriate for Disney."

According to Inside Magazine, "Animators familiar with the project said Roy Disney had declared that the film was not appropriate for Disney. The project was killed after the studio spent about $20 million, according to animation sources."

In a separate article, Inside Magazine claimed, "The shelving of Disney's computer-generated Wild Life has sent big ripples through the animation community, as it apparently signals at least a temporary end to the studio's expensive attempt to launch an in-house answer to Pixar, the creator of the fantastically successfully Toy Story and A Bug's Life."

Parental groups may applaud the decision to cancel the film over its apparent use of several sexual innuendoes and gay friendly themes deemed inappropriate for children movies. Still, others point out that if the film went too far, it could have been released by one of Disney's subsidiary movie companies as was the case with Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas.

* * *

Is FOX Giving Up on Digimon Before it Starts?
20th Century Fox is doing little to promote the new Digimon film to the press. The official Digimon press kit, sent to various media to promote the film, only contained two picture sheets and a three page description of the movie. Most press kits contain up to a dozen photos/slides and dozens of pages of behind the scenes information.

Heavily marketed with Saturday morning cartoon trailers, Digimon opens today in 1,850 theaters across the U.S. with a trading card promotion. But it starts with two and a half strikes against it. The first strike is that many will view Digimon as a Pokemon wannabee, a fast disappearing "fad" as shown by the Pokemon sequel (released this summer) which barely made half the money of the original release. The second strike is the PG rating. Parents with small children have largely abandoned PG rated animated films. Titan A.E. was abandoned, The Iron Giant was abandoned, The Road to El Dorado was abandoned, and even the demographics for the successful PG-rated Dinosaur showed a mostly older audience.

So what is the half of a strike? The reviews. While most parents seem to ignore reviews (otherwise, The Iron Giant would have been a hit), some do give credence to reviewers who are being highly critical of Digimon:

According to Variety: "It's a shame that a saga full of amusing pop culture messages (for those able and willing to find them) is ultimately so marred by the kind of animation that can only be the product of an assembly line operation. While there are flashes of imagination in the repeated spurts of action as the Digimons leap into the fray, the stiff movement and bland color schemes remain a constant, and finally prove extremely hard to watch for the sustained length of a feature."

According to the Boston Globe: "What is particularly unappealing and troublesome about the feature is that it is a video game barely disguised as a movie. The uninspired animation and hackneyed dialogue offer no cleverness, no distinguishable characteristics to any of the kids or the Digimon (these creatures talk, unlike the gibberish-spouting Pokemon, but they have nothing interesting to say). All are simply a collection of names and sketchy traits."

According to Screen It (which screens films for parents): "the filmmakers - from both the Japanese and American camps -- should be chastised for their choice of copied material. That's because if one's going to rip off something else, they should at least make sure that the original product is good since the quality of the duplicate rarely matches that of the original. As such, if you copy an excellent film, you might end up with a good one. However, when you copy a film or idea that's bad or awful from the start - such as the Pokémon films - you're likely to end up with nothing more than useless wreck. That's certainly the case with Digimon: The Movie that earns a rating of just 1 out of 10."

Even with so much stacked up against it, Digimon does have one thing going for it that the makers of The Iron Giant and Titan A.E. may have benefited from - it is coming out at a time when theaters need "family films". There have been no kid movies released for months, so the time is ripe for one and even a bad one could end up with a decent audience.

***

Monsters, Inc. Trailer Released!
Disney has released the trailer for Pixar's Monsters, Inc. online, but as of early Friday morning, the Apple servers were technical difficulties in properly downloading and displaying the trailer. Click here to go to the Monsters, Inc. trailer page.

Saturday, October 7, 2000

CINAR Discusses Investigation
According to the CBC:

"Cinar Corp., the troubled children's animation company struggling to survive a financial scandal and a stock market plunge, says it expects to reach a tax-fraud settlement with the federal and provincial governments 'imminently.'

In a letter to shareholders made public Friday, the company said 'resolution will include the payment of taxes owing and penalties.'

Best known for animated children's TV shows... Cinar is also being sued by shareholders and subsidiaries while the RCMP probes allegations the company falsely claimed tax subsidies by crediting scripts to Canadians that were written by Americans..."

Click here for the full story.

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"Light Star Fantasy" World Premiere Set
The world premiere of "Light-Star-Fantasy" (new video version with composition by Yoshi Ichige) will take place on October 25, 2000 in the music-metropolis Vienna, in the Oberlaa Kurhalle. This musical fantasy embarks on an interstellar voyage and features the cosmic paintings of Czech artist Zdenek Hajny. In this presentation his works are transformed into a glittering experience by the latest video animation techniques.

In contrast to movies like Star Wars with a dramatic, heavily loaded plot, such as scenes depicting war, Starvoice values inner peace and harmony, through portraying beautiful songs. Through its purity "Starvoice" can serve as an energy source, which makes inner harmony possible.

One of the few Japanese female composers whose works can also be experienced in performance in Europe is Yoshi Ichige. The "wunderkind composer" (quotation from a daily Austrian newspaper, 1988), has performed her compositions world wide.

The first presentation of Starvoice "Light-Star-Fantasy" took place in Prague in 1995. It is a total work of art incorporating music, painting, literature (poetry and legends), astronomy and technology (computer video animation, 16:9 cinema-size).

The astrophysics consultant to the production is Prof. Dr. Gerhard Boerner from Munich. The Prague planetarium has also provided support by contributing astronomical images and advice on astronomy.

Starvoice "Light-Star-Fantasy" comprises 11 pieces of music (including "Universe," "In the Distance of Space," "Secret of the Universe," "Promenade of Stars," "Kaleidoscope," "Moon Princess," "Milky Way"). The Starvoice Studio has been working on the images for 5 years using computer-aided processing techniques to transform them into a highly effective animated format.

In this international charity event the composer Yoshi Ichige will sing the stars' songs live.

Sunday, October 8, 2000

Batman Beyond DVD Delayed
The release of the new Batman Beyond DVD movie, Return of the Joker, has been moved from late October to December 12, 2000. Warner Brothers hasn't released an official statement as to the delay, but speculation has ranged from editing it to be less violent (due to congress pressure on Hollywood) to simply giving WB more time to promote it closer to the Christmas holidays (more gift purchases).

The DVD will be packed with many extra features, including a "Making Of" documentary and deleted footage.

* * *

Drawing Dilbert
According to CNN:

"This has happened to me many times. It gets to be 1 o'clock and I think to myself, 'God, I'm tired - I'd like a nap.' It's 1 p.m. and the question is, do you know where your favorite cartoonist is?

If he's Scott Adams, creator of the corporate comic strip 'Dilbert,' try looking on the floor of his home office near San Francisco. That's right, the floor.

'I've literally gotten out of my chair, lain on the floor and fallen sound asleep,' Adams says. 'I don't even bother walking to the couch, because there's nobody going to come in and see me. When I wake up I ask myself if I feel like working, and if I do, I get back in the chair and I work. If I don't, I do something else.'

It's a work environment far removed from the character Dilbert's world of cynical, conniving, cubicle-dwelling engineers reporting to a dunderhead boss..."

Click here for the full story.

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