Up At Film Roman/IDT

"The Simpsons" feature unit has now migrated from floor three of the IDT building to floor one... Some crew members admitted that there is a lot of work to do between now and the July release date for Bart, Marge et famille. I said that with the narrow time frame they're facing, lots of people will have some lengthy work weeks ("The Simpsons" schedule reminds me of the one Warners' "Space Jam" enjoyed a decade ago. That flick had something like eight and a half months to crank out its animation, and if you wandered through the studio day, nights or weekends, you could find artists laboring away on it. "Space Jam," if you don't remember, was one of Warner Bros.'s few successes in feature animation...) Upstairs, the two "HellBoy" DVD features (with John Hurt recreating his live-action role) steam closer to their ship dates, and everyone is real focused. (Of course, there are also the occasional melt-downs, but those are sort of a by-product of being focused.) Here's producer Tad Stones' production diary of "HellBoy." It's worth checking out.