AWN Headline News

* Friday, November 13. Glendale, California, U.S.A

The 26th Annual Annie Awards, a yearly awards ceremony honoring the best inanimation will be held this year at the Alex Theater located at 216 N.Brand Blvd. The event is hosted by the Los Angeles chapter of theInternational Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood. A champagne receptionstarts at 5:00 PM with the awards ceremony following at 7:00 PM. For moreinformation and tickets, call ASIFA-Hollywood at (818) 842-8330 and see the

* Tuesday, November 17, - Thursday, November 19. London, U.K.

The fifth London Effects & Animation Festival (LEAF) will take place duringthe Digital Media World Convention at the Wembley Conference Center inLondon. For more information, call Julie Marshall at (44) 01 81 994 7354 oremail to leaf@atlas.co.uk.

* Thursday, November 19, - Saturday, November 21. Hollywood, California,U.S.A.

Short Pictures International Film Festival (SPIFF) was originally createdto highlight short films, animation, music videos and documentaries created by Sony Pictures Imageworks employees, however thisyear the program has been opened up to all filmmakers. Visithttp://www.spiffest.com to find out more about the event.

For the first time in the 26-year history of the Annie Awards, the show will be nationally televised. FoxFamily Channel will air the presentation honoring the best of the animationindustry at a yet-to-be-announced date in December. Confirmed presentersfor this year's show include voice artists Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson)and the legendary June Foray, as well as actress T'keyah Krystal Keymaa("Cosby," "In Living Color," "Waynehead"). Submissions of animated TVshows, feature films, short subjects and commercials will be awarded in

* Tuesday, November 24, - Saturday, November 28. Mendrisio, Switzerland.

The Mendrisio Swiss International Animated Film Festival includes a short,feature and animated "pilot" competition, as well as student films, 3Dcomputer animation, retrospectives, exhibitions, conferences and more. Forinformation call (41) 91 646 16 54.

Fox Family Channels is creating two new digital cable/satellite networks, The Boyz Channel and The Girlz Channel, offering gender-specific entertainment and educational programming for 2-14 year-old boys and girls. The full-time, ad-supported services scheduled to launch sometime in 1999 will also be available as basic analog channels. Much of the programming will come from the library that Fox Kids already owns mixed in with some original productions. In the evenings, the channels' focus will target parents with programs dealing with raising and parenting children of that specific gender.

Pixar, the company behind "Toy Story," posted a third quarter net profit of $2.5 million, or $0.02 per share, down from a third quarter profit of $5.3 million last year. The positive profits however did surprise financial analysts who had forecasted a third quarter loss of $0.02 for the third quarter. The upcoming release of "A Bug's Life" is expected to help further rejuvenate Pixar's revenues.

HotWired's Animation Express (http://www.hotwired.com/animation/) is a new site that showcases the latest animation from both professional and independent animators. The animation can be viewed using plug-in technologies like Quicktime 3, Shockwave's Flash 3 and Director 6 and a "plug-in tester" will help you download the right plug-ins if you don't already have them. Currently, the site features selections from Pixar's Oscar-winning short "Geri's Game" and highlights from Spike and Mike's 1998 Festival of Animation.