October 2009 Archives

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - October 15, 2009 - For a fifth time, FlickerLab has teamed with Academy Award-winning Director Michael Moore, and created a minute-long animated segment, Chicken Little, for his latest feature Capitalism: A Love Story. Opening in New York and Los Angeles Sept. 23 and in theaters nationwide October 2nd, the film explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a sardonic look at the corporate and political shenanigans that plunged the world into the current financial crisis.
 
FlickerLab, the New York-based design and animation studio, worked with Moore in the past to create a cartoon for Bowling for Columbine and graphics and design for both Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, three of the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In addition, the company collaborated with Moore on a music video for the Armenian-American rock band System of a Down.
 
For Capitalism: A Love Story (from Paramount Vantage), FlickerLab designed, animated and created effects for a one-minute piece using rotoscoped footage of George Bush's state of the union speech in which he scared the nation into giving the banking industry $700 million dollars, and turned the footage  into Chicken Little, a cartoon horror show.  Bush is at the podium, on a red carpet, addressing the nation as thunder, lightening, flames, and great gusts of wind, envelop and destroy the White House, ending the world as we have known it. Chandeliers fall, columns crash to the ground, walls crumble and citizens run shrieking through the hall behind the President. In addition to this cartoon, the animation studio created other graphics and motion design pieces for the film.
 
Of their most recent collaboration with Moore, FlickerLab Director/Creative Director Harold Moss stated, "It is always a real thrill to be working with Michael, particularly on a film that goes right to the roots of the economic crisis we have all been trying to swim through."
 
 

Santa Monica, CA (October 15, 2009) - Leading visual effects company Entity FX announced today that it has completed visual effects for a number of key sequences in the new motion picture Law Abiding Citizen.  Directed by F. Gary Gray and distributed domestically by Overture Films, Law Abiding Citizen tells the story of an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are ruthlessly murdered when robbers break into their home.  Outraged at the release of one of the killers and the failure of the justice system, he orchestrates a string of spectacular assassinations to exact his revenge.

Although no actors were harmed in the making of this movie, Entity FX served up some gruesome demises for a variety of victims in the film.

One example is an execution sequence in which poison courses through a character's bulging veins as he dies in agony from a lethal injection gone awry.  Entity FX digitally tracked 3D pulsing (and leaking) blood vessels to the actor's violent movements.

Entity FX additionally built and launched a missile that destroys an SUV with the help of an enhanced explosion.  A lethal telephone call also benefited from Entity's digital mayhem.  Further work by the company included invisible cosmetic and scenic enhancements to a number of scenes.

Entity FX's toolset on the project included Maya for 3D modeling and animation, boujou for tracking and After Effects and Inferno for compositing and image effects.  Entity FX credits include: Mat Beck, Senior VFX Supervisor; Brian Harding, VFX Supervisor; Daniel Rucinski, VFX Executive Producer; Ellyn Lewis, General Manager; Krista Maryanski, VFX Producer; Bob Hamel and Maggie Whittemore, VFX Coordinators; Eli Jarra, and Chris Stevens, Senior Compositors; Jeremy Renteria, Brian Petras, Compositors; Billy Robinson, Rotoscope Artist; Kaz Yoshida, David Alexander, Rik Panero, Dean Deakyne, Yuko Uda, 3D Artists; Viet Nguyen, Systems Engineering; and Nate Smalley and Aaron Leichter, Data I/O.

About Entity FX
Entity FX specializes in visual effects for feature film, television and commercials.  With facilities in Santa Monica, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Entity FX delivers creativity on demand for today's productions with services in pre-visualization, on-set supervision, virtual backgrounds, matte painting, environmental effects, compositing, CG animation, specialty photography and more.

Entity FX has contributed visual effects to a range of motion pictures including The Final Destination (in stereoscopic 3D), Michael Jackson's This Is It (soon to be released), Betty Anne Waters (soon to be released), The Spirit, The X Files: I Want To Believe, Into the Wild, Rush Hour 3, Miami Vice, Spider-Man 2, The Aviator, Scary Movie 4, Herbie:  Fully Loaded and many others.  Credits in television include Eastwick, The Vampire Diaries, 30 for 30, Smallville, Jessie James is a Dead Man, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Harper's Island, Pushing Daisies, Fight Science, Crime 360, 48 Hours Mystery, Sports Science and many other television pilots, specials and shows.

New generation Bonita camera is small, powerful and cost-effective

13 October 2009, Oxford, UK: Vicon, developer of motion capture products,
today launched Bonita, a small, affordable optical capture camera for
tracking and analyzing motion. Bonita is capable of capturing 240FPS while
being small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Vicon has also
announced the launch of Tracker, a robust object tracking software
providing unparalleled data accuracy for integration in 3D applications.

"Our 25-year history for technological innovations and our experience
perfecting camera calibration and 3D reconstruction techniques has led to
the development of Bonita and Tracker," said Doug Reinke, CEO and
President, Vicon. "These two very exciting introductions have been designed
to be powerful, easy to use, cost-effective and are tailor-made for those
working in industrial engineering, robotics, human factors engineering,
virtual engineering and academia."

Bonita is Vicon's smallest optical capture camera that has been engineered
to be powerful, accurate, reliable and affordable. It's easy to set up and
accurate enough to capture with positional accuracy down to one millimeter
in a 4m x 4m volume.

Montreal (October 13, 2009) - Emmy Award-winning Toon Boom Animation Inc. today announced that its entire line of products is compatible with Snow Leopard, Apple's latest operating system for Mac. All software for kids, home users and professionals were thoroughly tested and proved to be running smoothly on the new operating system. Only Toon Boom Studio and its plug-in required a new build which is available to all Studio 5 customers.

"As always, Toon Boom is fully committed to the creative Mac community and we pride ourselves to make all our offerings compatible with the latest Apple's operating system" shared Joan Vogelesang, President and Chief Executive Officer at Toon Boom.

About Toon Boom Animation Inc.
Toon Boom Animation Inc. (toonboom.com) is the worldwide leader in animation software solutions. Toon Boom carries user-friendly animation applications for all and develops new geographies to make the animation community as global as can be. In that market segment, Toon Boom caters to the needs of children, home users, creative professionals as well as students, educators and schools.

As importantly, Toon Boom is fully dedicated to the needs of independent animators and studios, offering a wide product range from powerful pre-production tools to leading-edge animation production solutions. Relying on its extensive expertise in animation production, Toon Boom provides consulting services in the fields of optimization, pipeline integration, production assistance and custom development.
In 2005, Toon Boom was granted the Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for its significant contribution made to the animation industry targeted for television. In 2006, the IT Federation of Quebec (FIQ) awarded an OCTAS 2006 in the Multimedia - educational and cultural sector category, for Toon Boom Studio. In 2007, FIQ awarded an OCTAS 2007 in the Technological Innovation category, for Toon Boom Storyboard Pro. In 2008, Flip Boom was granted a Parents' Choice Gold Award and a New Canadian Media Award in the Excellence in Children's category. In 2009, Flip Boom was selected as Editor's Choice by the prestigious Children's Technology Review for excellence in design.

Toon Boom's client base ranges from major studios creating Hollywood blockbuster animated films to individual animators creating their first masterpieces. Market-leading studios using Toon Boom's products include Nelvana, Warner Bros., Mercury Filmworks, China Central Television, Toonz Animation India, eMation, Rough Draft Korea, Alphanim, Cosgrove Hall, Cromosoma and Enarmonia, to name a few. Some of the prestigious productions done with Toon Boom's technology include Les Triplettes de Belleville, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Rugrats, SpongeBob The Movie, Hanuman, Curious George, Go West: A New Lucky Luke Adventure, Simpsons The Movie and The Princess and the Frog.

(Oakdale, California - October 12, 2009) SpectSoft LLC., a leading provider of
video solutions on the Linux platform, today announced a new version of the
popular 3d Live solution.

SpectSofts newest system, which debuts at an upcoming Southern California demo
in November offers the ability to take in  dual SDI streams, mix them and
feed them out DVI/HDMI or Dual SDI. This offers users the ability to drive a
variety of display solutions, both 3D and standard along with other SDI
devices, all simultaneously. The 2 incoming SDI streams can be from any
source and can be either discreet eyes (right and left eye) or a single SDI
stream that can contain both eyes combined in a variety of configurations
(side by side, over under, etc.).

"The biggest difference between our standard version of 3d Live and the new
Pro version is the SDI in and out, along with an expanded tool-set for the
professional needs",  comments Ramona Howard, President of SpectSoft. "We
have worked with many of the well know 3D facilities and individuals to build
in tools that made sense for both a post workflow as well as a production
one, thus allowing them to bridge the gap. Many of these facilities are doing
both the production and the post, therefore we wanted to give them one tool
they could use everywhere".

3d Live Pro adds in frame accurate SDI out, monitoring and adjustments,
machine control and meta-data capture. The ability to adjust parallax, apply
vertical adjustments, monitor RGB streams from each eye, and bring in any
stream/s and spit out any stream/s in a variety of 3D and standard formats.
3d Live is being used for:

Setting up cameras
Monitoring image quality of live streams
Monitoring stereo assurance of live streams
QC of already created/captured material
Creating in real-time stereo images from dual streams (discreet eyes)
Creating in real-time discreet eyes from existing stereo image formats
Creating in real-time stereo images from other stereo image formats
Adjusting stereo images - Real-time frame accurate image adjustment (per
frame)

"We just finished renting your 3d Live for the first time last month, with
outstanding results. Our client used it for a low budget feature, their
previous 3D experience hadn't gone so well, so we were concerned. Their
response was beyond our best hopes. They got more than twice the setups they
had done previously. The producers felt they were seeing what they were
getting better than ever, all because of 3d Live. Last week, we completed our
own production, and we all confirmed what our rental client told us. 3d Live
is a terrific product. Speeds up the work. Keeps people on set in the loop.
You could not have delivered a better product."   comments Bernie Laramie,
StereoScope Studios.

SpectSoft will be showing off 3d Live at an upcoming demo in Burbank. The
demos are open to all who are interested. Details are:

November 10
12-5
727 N. Victory Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91502

Private demos can be made by contacting SpectSoft direct.

About SpectSoft - SpectSoft, LLC
The brainchild of a mother and son team, was founded in 1997 to serve the
film, media, and broadcast industries. Since its inception, SpectSoft has
worked on technical projects with some of the industries biggest and
brightest companies and  continue to push the envelope and further the state
of the art in the film pipeline process. Throughout the years, SpectSoft has
been able to maintain a relatively small footprint and the family values and
ownership that make it so unique. http://www.spectsoft.com

The animated feature film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is based on the classic children's book about the town of ChewandSwallow, where mysterious storms begin raining down hot dogs, pancakes, bananas, spaghetti, burgers, and more, to everyone's delight. But when the storms get out of control, the town needs a hero. And they don't mean a sandwich.

A movie this visually arresting and surprising demands compelling and technically sophisticated end main credits. DUCK took up the challenge.

"Joining a project of this caliber was an opportunity to showcase not just the technical skill, but also the technical creativity of our designers and animators," said DUCK Executive Producer Mark Medernach.

Working from story ideas by the movie's two directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, DUCK created animatics for timing and motion for the sequence. Directors Soyeon Kim & Todd Hemker of YELLOWSHED, represented by DUCK, collaborated with designer Justin K. Thompson from Sony to design the characters and backgrounds in Photoshop. Then, DUCK used After Effects to create digital puppets for the characters, adding joints to the bodies for movability. In a process similar to traditional stop-motion animation, designers posed each frame exactly the way they wanted it animated. DUCK animators worked from the puppets and the frames to animate the sequence in seven weeks.

Hollywood, CA -  (October 6, 2009) -- Visual effects and design company Engine Room has tapped consultant Peter Ware of Warecrest Entertainment to offer strategic guidance and boost brand awareness for the boutique company. Ware brings extensive experience as a visual effects producer and former president of Stargate Digital to his role at Engine Room. His latest credit was that of Visual Effects Producer/Supervisor on Warner Premier's "Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins."

"Engine Room is Hollywood's best kept secret and I intend to change all of that," says Ware. "They have amazing talent and provide exceptional service to clients, not to mention beautifully executed effects and design for features, television and commercials."

Peter Ware and Engine Room founder/cinematographer Dan Schmit first met in 1997 during the production of "Asteroid." The two have kept in touch over the years, with an eye to future collaboration. Ware launched his consulting agency, Warecrest, in 2006 as Engine Room was expanding its reach further into television episodic and promotion, offering a timely opportunity to reunite.

"Few people understand the changing television visual effects business better than Peter Ware; he's a veteran general in exactly our field.  This means that the wealth of experience he shares is perfectly in line with what we as a company need right now," says Schmit, who is a believer in surrounding the company with the right advisors. "Peter has already been invaluable in keeping us focused in these tricky times.  I am looking forward to continuing our relationship with him for many years to come."

Cinematographer/VFX Supervisor Dan Schmit and Executive Producer Michael Caplan and their talented team of Artists combined in 2001 to form the next paradigm for visual effects in the entertainment industry. Epitomizing the phrase "Good things come in small packages" Engine Room is a focused, creative boutique that combines a highly creative process for the filmmakers while satisfying the studios' need for fiscal responsibility and efficiency. Engine Room's clients include HBO, Disney Channel, Lifetime, CBS and Discovery.

Innovative Preschool Series Designed to
Spark Interest in Life Science, Natural History and Paleontology
Cannes, France:  October 6, 2009 - On the eve of MIPCOM, The Jim Henson Company has finalized a new broadcast agreement with Discovery Kids Latin America to air the all-new CGI-animated series, Dinosaur Train, across the region.  The new deal follows previously announced agreements for the series with Nickelodeon (Australia), Selecta Vision (Spain), Al Jazeera (Middle East), TVO and TFO (Canada), Knowledge (British Columbia) and NRK (Norway), and is the second series to be acquired by the channel which currently airs The Jim Henson Company's Sid the Science Kid.  The announcement was made today at MIPCOM 2009 by Sam Ewing, Head of International Sales, The Jim Henson Company and Bilai Joa Silar, Vice President & Channel Director, Discovery U.S. Hispanic Networks & Discovery Kids Latin America.
 
Dinosaur Train embraces and celebrates the fascination that preschoolers have with both dinosaurs and trains while encouraging basic scientific thinking and skills as the audience learns about natural science, natural history and paleontology.  The new series premiered September 7, 2009 in the U.S. on PBS KIDS®.  The Jim Henson Company will offer 40 half-hour episodes (80 x 11 minute episodes) at the MIPCOM market.
 
Dinosaur Train is seen through the eyes of Buddy, a preschool-aged Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Buddy and his adoptive family of Pteranodons go for adventures on the Dinosaur Train to meet all kinds of dinosaurs in different eras and learn fascinating new facts about these incredible creatures.
 
"Our international broadcast partners have immediately embraced Dinosaur Train," comments Ewing.  "The Jim Henson Company is synonymous with quality entertaining and engaging programming, and partners, such as Discovery Kids Latin America, see that Dinosaur Train is a series that delivers key elements all kids love--dinosaurs and trains."
 
"Dinosaur Train exemplifies the level of quality programming that meets our standards and helps to fulfill Discovery Kid's mission to introduce science concepts to preschoolers," added Silar.  "This is a great addition to our programming schedule and sure to engage our viewers through the unique characters and storylines."
 
Created by Craig Bartlett (Hey Arnold!), Dinosaur Train joins other top-ranked PBS KIDS preschool series including The Jim Henson Company's Sid The Science Kid, which premiered in fall 2008. Brian Henson, Lisa Henson, Halle Stanford and Bartlett executive produce. The series is co-produced with Singapore animation company Sparky Entertainment, with the participation and assistance of the Singapore Media Development Authority. UK production and financial support is being provided by Ingenious Media.

Rhino (formerly RhinoFX) is pleased to announce the launch of its new Los Angeles-based studio. The recent move expands Rhino's reach and follows 18 months of integrating the company's Connecticut, New York and Tel Aviv offices; transforming it into the Rhino-Gravity Group with offices around the globe.  The expanded company will closely collaborate internally on various projects, as well as take a two pronged approach; focusing on film and television projects as a VFX vendor and also serving as an outsourcing solution to the larger houses in the area.

The expansion into Los Angeles maintains Rhino's tradition of operating in markets with feature film incentive programs. The opening of the Connecticut studio owes a large part of its success to that state's favorable tax credits, and Rhino is confident that similar programs in California will help ensure the new studio's long-term success.

"Between the tax credits in New York, Connecticut and Los Angeles, and Rhino's deep roster of highly experienced talent in all three of its locations, our company is now fully equipped to take on any sized visual effects project.", stated Rhino's VP of Features Karin Levinson.

The first key hire for the West Coast roost has already taken place in VFX Supervisor/Flame Artist Elad Offer. "We've been talking about this for several years now, so this is just the end result of a very natural progression," stated Rhino COO/EP Camille Geier. "We wanted to open an LA office to help accommodate studios and directors during the visual effects process."

The addition of the new Los Angeles office will be made seamless by Rhino's experience working with Gravity's global studios, which enhanced both locations' abilities to coordinate projects across far-flung time zones, thousands of miles apart.

"By working from coast-to-coast with outposts all over the globe, we're essentially operating on a 24-hour day," stated Rhino CEO Zviah Eldar. "We've now created a substantial network through which we can integrate creative and technical resources, streamlining our entire operation."

Rhino's immediate emphasis will be to establish and grow the LA studio to become a go-to shop for feature films and television series by seeking out new talent, which compliment its other offices. Feature film credits stemming from the LA studio include Get Smart, Get Bruce and Lloyd, Idlewild and Stomp the Yard. Additionally, the West Coast office has produced numerous commercials for Nike, Reebok, Visa and Acura, as well as more than 200 music videos in the past six years for huge acts like Outkast, some of which have won MVPA and MTV awards for visual effects work.

The LA office joins the company just in time to collaborate with Warner Brothers' A Couple of Dicks, which Rhino will be producing as the sole VFX company through its NY studio. Rhino is also currently in production on The Other Guys and Salt for Sony Pictures and Adjustment Bureau for Universal Pictures. The new features will add to the impressive list of hit movies that have emerged from the offices recently, including Ghost Town (DreamWorks/Paramount), Perfect Stranger (Revolution Studios/Sony Pictures), The Reader (The Weinstein Co.), Soul Men (Dimension Films) and The Nanny Diaries (The Weinstein Co./MGM)

"Rhino has incredible talent, an impressive portfolio, and connections everywhere - all they were missing is an office in Los Angeles," noted Offer. "This is a great opportunity for us to establish a strong foothold in the West Coast's feature film market, and I'm looking forward to helping lead the charge."

Offer brings considerable credentials to Rhino. Several collaborations with esteemed directors and producers in the ad industry illustrate his recent portfolio. Prior to running Digit, Offer founded and acted as the Creative Director for Moneyshots, which quickly became one of the most respected names in visual effects for high-profile music videos and commercials. He has done cutting-edge work on many feature films, including Pearl Harbor and Moulin rouge, and for hit television series Charmed and Roswell, among others. Offer will be reunited with Gravity, where he began his career in 1994.

About Rhino:

Since its launch in 2000, Rhino has created award-winning visual effects, design, and animation for commercials, VFX for feature films, episodic television, webisodic mini-series, and videogame cinematics. The company's principals and artists have also led the industry's exploration into the boundless potential of branded digital content. By cultivating extensive relationships with key brands, advertising agencies, and film/TV studios, Rhino utilizes its creative directors and artists to develop and execute powerful branded entertainment to build both identity and awareness. The company's principals include: CD/Director Vico Sharabani, CD/Director Harry Dorrington, CD/Director Natasha Saenko, COO/EP Camille Geier, Managing Director Rick Wagonheim, and CEO North America Zviah Eldar.

Trace Pictures is thrilled to announce their new Creative Director, Hector Herrera. Hector has joined the ranks of Trace heading up the design and animation team.
Previously of Cuppa Coffee Animation and The Studio Upstairs, Hector moves to Trace with 9 years under his belt as CD. He has lead commercial and broadcast projects for such clients as Cartoon Network, Spike TV, BBC, JWT, CTV, TSN, FCB, CBC, Gospel Network ... to name a few.
Starting his career as a graphic designer, Hector has a passion for hands on design and mixed media approach. "I love combining multiple sources and techniques and I've always found Trace's work inspiring for this reason. They are open to doing crazy sh$@! What's really exciting for me though, is Trace's strategic approach to working. Their work is not only well executed but it's also well thought out."
Hector has also worked on the ad agency side as Art Director for agencies such as Leo Burnett and MacClaren McCann.
In his spare time, Hector is an instructor at The Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in the illustration program, a competitive swimmer, a karate master, a conneseur of fine food and drink (tequila included), and a lover of all things musical. Welcome, Hector.

About TRACE PICTURES:

Trace is a design firm and a full service production company working in live action and all forms of animation. Most recent clients include Nickelodeon, Digitas, DDB NY, Tribal, Nicktoons, The Hive, Showtime, Cartoon Network, Versus, Leo Burnett, Strawberry Frog, National Geographic Channel, Worldways, Fox Sports Net, WE and many more.

Montreal (October 5, 2009) - Emmy Award-winning Toon Boom Animation Inc. today announced that Metrovision, the leading post-production studio in Argentina, has chosen the Toon Boom pipeline to start its new Animation Division. Led by the experienced María Laura Moure, this new Division will produce high quality animation for local and international advertising, television and feature film projects.

In addition to recommending using the most advanced digital equipment and technology, María Laura Moure has gathered a highly seasoned team specialized in 2D and 3D animation, and experienced in scanning, digital ink and paint, compositing and special effects. A special unit dedicated to pre-production and concept development will also be able to take care of storyboarding, layouts, backgrounds, designs, visual concepts and character designs.

"Knowing our goal is to meet international standards, we have chosen to work with Toon Boom Animation and adopt their leading-technology geared towards animation production" stated María Laura Moure, Metrovision's Animation Manager.

About Toon Boom Animation Inc.
Toon Boom Animation Inc. (toonboom.com) is the worldwide leader in animation software solutions. Toon Boom carries user-friendly animation applications for all and develops new geographies to make the animation community as global as can be. In that market segment, Toon Boom caters to the needs of children, home users, creative professionals as well as students, educators and schools.

Series marks the third collaboration between the companies
 
 
London:  Target Entertainment Group has struck a deal with Chapman Entertainment to sell the international TV rights to the 52x10' pre-school comedy animation, Rah Rah! The Noisy Lion, excluding North America and the UK.
 
Originated by leading UK animation studio Mackinnon & Saunders and co-produced with Chapman Entertainment, Rah Rah! The Noisy Lion is a fun and noisy stop-frame animated series that will help young children to find their voice!
 
Aimed at two to four year-olds, the series is about a young lion called Rah Rah and his little friends who all live in the Jingly Jangly Jungle. Rah Rah is just finding his voice and when he gets excited he forgets his words and can only manage a roar!  Luckily the noisy jungle world he lives in is the perfect place to learn. Rah Rah and his friends discover they can solve noisy mysteries, go on adventures and have a lot more fun if they use gestures, expressions and best of all, words!
 
Rah Rah! The Noisy Lion has already been picked up by CBeebies in the UK for its 2011 schedule.
 
Jane Dockery, director of sales and programming at Target Entertainment Group, said:
"Rah Rah! The Noisy Lion is the third fantastic show Target has picked up from Chapman Entertainment and we are confident that, like Roary the Racing Car and Fifi and the Flowertots, it will be a huge hit. It's a perfect addition to our quality children's portfolio."
 
Andrew Haydon, commercial and finance director at Chapman Entertainment comments: "It's great to be working with Target again on Rah Rah The Noisy Lion. We are very excited to be showcasing this adorable new stop-frame series at Mipcom, and we are confident that international broadcasters will love it as much as we do."
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Toronto (October 1, 2009) - Cookie Jar Entertainment continues to reach kids of all ages with a wide variety of soon-to-be hit and classic series including "Metajets," "Caillou," "Johnny Test" and "Hurray For Huckle!/Busytown Mysteries". New seasons of the shows have recently been sold to major networks around the world.
Cookie Jar's new high-flying, thrill-seeking, action-adventure series, "Metajets," is scheduled to air on Nickelodeon in Spain and Portugal in 2010 and on Turkey's Dogan TV / D-Smart Platform.
An all new fifth season of evergreen "Caillou," a co-production with South Africa's Clockwork Zoo, has been pre-sold to Germany's Super RTL, who also renewed the existing 66 half hours. France's Boomerang and Australia's ABC TV have also picked up 66 half-hours of the international hit. The new season will have an increased focus on storylines about healthy habits relevant to kids today.
Cookie Jar has signed multi-territory deals with both Nickelodeon and Turner Broadcasting for season four of the action-comedy series "Johnny Test". It will air on Nickelodeon in Italy, Germany, France and Benelux. It will also air on Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network in the UK, Scandinavia and throughout central and eastern Europe. Elsewhere, the show has been picked up by Filmmedya (Turkey), Orlando Kids (Croatia) and Tooniverse (Korea).
An all-new second season of "Hurray For Huckle!/Busytown Mysteries", currently in production, has been sold to RTE (Ireland), RUV (Iceland), SVT (Sweden) and YLE (Finland). Inspired by the classic works of best-selling author Richard Scarry, "Hurry For Huckle!/Busytown Mysteries" has also been picked up by ABC TV (Australia), TVP (Poland) and HOP Channel (Israel).
About Cookie Jar Group
Cookie Jar Group is a Canadian-based global entertainment, consumer products and education company dedicated to excellence. Through Cookie Jar Entertainment, the company is a leader in the creation, production and marketing of evergreen character brands that appeal to kids and families worldwide. Cookie Jar Entertainment's library of nearly 6,000 half-hour episodes features some of the world's most recognizable brands, including "Caillou," "Inspector Gadget," "The Doodlebops," "Arthur" and "Johnny Test".  The company owns non-character based brands for licensing such as Mommy & Me. Cookie Jar's full-service international licensing division, Copyright Promotions Licensing Group, represents numerous third-party iconic brands worldwide. Cookie Jar Group also has a one-third interest in international children's television channel Kidsco. Cookie Jar Education, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, is one of North America's largest providers of supplemental education materials, reaching nearly 2,000 teachers across the United States, through the Carson-Dellosa and HighReach Learning brands.  

Originating as a virtual studio that farmed out production to outside companies, Big Bad Boo Studios has grown from necessity. For its first animated children's program, Mixed Nutz, a multi-cultural comedy about a group of kids who feel they don't fit in, preproduction was divided between studios in New York and Los Angeles, while animation was contracted to the Philippines. Then, in 2007 and halfway through production of the series, co-founders Aly Jetha and Shabnam Rezaei decided they needed a more centralized approach. They opened the doors of Big Bad Boo as a dedicated production facility in Vancouver, B.C., started their own distribution company called OzNoz Productions, and implemented an all-digital workflow by purchasing 14 Wacom®® Cintiq® 21UX interactive pen displays.

The Cintiq digital pipeline immediately introduced tremendous time savings as Big Bad Boo completed Mixed Nutz, which will soon premiere on PBS and Shaw Communications. The most significant efficiencies were in the storyboarding and layout processes, where paper boards and constant trips to the scanner were completely eliminated. Now, Big Bad Boo has undertaken its first production done entirely with the Cintiqs: 26 11-minute episodes of One Thousand and One Nights, an animated comedy targeting the 6 to 9 age group based on the ancient Persian tales of Shahrzad.

"The Cintiq 21UX displays are crucial to our efforts from asset creation and management to final shipping," says Shabnam Rezaei. "If you compare the storyboard process of Mixed Nutz to One Thousand and One Nights, you see that the Cintiq helped us accelerate production time by nearly 60 percent."

Previously, artists needed to paste pieces of paper on the storyboard panel indicating changes, or draw them in and rescan the board. Now, storyboard revisions are drawn directly onto the Cintiq's 21-inch LCD screen in Photoshop CS4 and Toon Boom Storyboard Pro using Wacom's pen technology, where an animatic is created prior to final animation in Toon Boom Harmony.

"To prepare one or two scenes the old way, including scanning, would take an entire morning," says Layout Supervisor Chris Muzyka. "That process now takes about an hour with a Cintiq."

Artists at Big Bad Boo also appreciate the pressure sensitive pen that allows line weight variation simply by varying the drawing pressure of the pen. This works perfectly for achieving the textures and the rich lines needed for One Thousand and One Nights. Storyboard Artist Gordon Crum notes, "The Cintiq pen's ability to mimic actual drawing on paper, such as the opacity of a pencil or the gradient in a line, is its biggest selling feature for artists."

In addition to dramatic workflow acceleration and new creative options, Aly Jetha cites another benefit of having Cintiqs in the pipeline: higher quality work. Artists using the Cintiq's expansive drawing surface are able to see an entire board at once, leading to better layout decisions, smoother transitions and better animation timing. "A lot of studios are cutting corners by using smaller tablets or the mouse, making it difficult for layout artists to do their job right," he says. "Because of the screen real estate the Cintiq offers, we are not only doing faster work, but better work. I'm convinced of that."

For more information on Wacom and Cintiq, visit: www.wacom.com/cintiq/.

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Latest version of ArtVPS's ground-breaking interactive rendering plug-in for 3ds Max includes significant performance and material improvements

Leading rendering solutions provider ArtVPS has announced the immediate availability of version 0.3 of Shaderlight, its flagship interactive rendering plug-in for 3ds Max. Shaderlight 0.3 boasts a number of enhancements over previous versions. Overall speed has been increased by 100 percent for complex production scenes, and early image quality of glossy materials and area lights has been significantly improved. Other benefits include increased image resolution and the addition of a message window to track log messages during interactive rendering.

Shaderlight delivers dramatic productivity and creativity improvements over traditional ray-trace engines. Intelligent pixels understand where they fit in a 3D image and what to do if something changes, enabling users to change materials, environments, lights or textures - the MELT elements - of a full resolution image at any stage of the rendering process without having to re-render.

"Shaderlight has received some great feedback from early adopters and many of the improvements in version 0.3 have been added in direct response to this. Prior to v0.3 the Art Professional Material was a test bed for new ideas. We have now redesigned it to create a flexible, physically accurate material that's even easier to understand and use," says Kate Marshall, Marketing Director at ArtVPS. "The user's experience is at the core of our development programme and we ask that Shaderlight users continue to share their thoughts on the Shaderlight forum and file bug-reports on any problems they encounter."