Studio Walkaround

At Universal Cartoon Studios and Starz Media/Film Roman, some projects are winding down.

At Universal, Land Before Time -- the series has completed its first round of shows; crew leads are waiting to see if Cartoon Network will order a second season.

Universal's Curious George episodics appear to be clicking along nicely in their second season on PBS...

Up the road at Film Roman/Starz Media, there is still a crew working on The Simpsons Movie, only it's smaller now (would have to be smaller, the picture's out July 27). Layout department is gone, cleanup and animation are still working, compositing still has a little while to go. "The writers kept changing and refining, we kept turning out new drawings," one artist told me. Another said: "I did more overtime in the last five weeks than I did at any other point on the picture. The writers kept throwing changes at us." Happily, his overtime is now done. Unhappily, he's facing lay off after eight hectic months of employment.

He said he's still catching up on his sleep.

Elsewhere in the studio, Slacker Cats is finishing up production boards and moving into production. And El Superbeasto (I'm informed) is moving ahead after a period of slumber.