What's Happening at Film Roman (IDT Entertainment)

I spent a large chunk of the afternoon at IDT Entertainment (aka Film Roman), cruising through their new studio in Burbank. Lots of things are popping... There are a bunch of old Disney hands who've been hired for "Simpsons: the Movie" (or whatever it's being called.) We talking animators. Layout artists. Background painters. I'm informed that the crew will be animating some scenes here, and doing more posing than is usually done on the television show. To that end, the staff will have several traditional animators cranking footage. One Disney vet -- who departed the Mouse House during the 2001-2002 bloodletting of traditional artists -- said he's happy to be back at the light board flipping animation paper; he's been doing production boards the last few years but hand-drawn animation is his first love. Other projects at IDTE include two direct-to-video features of Hellboy, the feature "El Super Beasto," a PG-13 feature which looks like it could be a hoot, plus a lot of t.v. series that includes two additional seasons of "The Simpsons," and twenty new episodes of "King of the Hill" produced off-site at the old building in North Hollywood. There's also non prime-time series in work and several other features in development. In terms of total number of projects, IDT might be the busiest shop in town.