Having acquired Simpsons animation house Film Roman and home video distributor Anchor Bay, and purchased controlling stakes in Canadian CG studio Mainframe and Archie Comics Ent., IDT Ent. continues its shopping spree. The company today announced that it bought Toronto-based DKP Effects Inc.
DKP Effects is a 3D animation and special effects production company established in 1985 by Dan Krech and Jackie Lynette. The company has produced pixel trickery for major Hollywood studios and provided effects and animation for more than 3,000 commercials. DKP recently completed six episodes of Game Over, the new primetime CG-animated series for UPN. Other recent projects include a VeggieTales episode and 3-2-1 Penguins! for Big Idea Prods., as well as the interactive DVD movie Scourge of Worlds: A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure.
"This acquisition brings that extra measure of pizazz to the animation magic created by IDT Entertainment," says IDT’s CEO Jim Courter. "By adding DKP’s cutting edge technology to its own world-class computer-generated animation capabilities, IDT Entertainment moves further ahead of the competition."
DKP provides IDT with another production hub in its growing global animation network that includes key facilities in the U.S., Canada and Israel. The acquisition also gives IDT use of DKP’s Graphic Realtime Information Display (theGRID), an animation asset management system used to speed up and simplify production on Game Over.
With The Simpsons, King of the Hill and, now, Game Over under its thumb, IDT has a production monopoly on primetime animated network shows. The company’s own digital animation unit, Digital Production Solutions (DPS), last year acquired rights to the unproduced Gene Roddenberry properties Starpoint Academy and Char, and has begun production on the former. DPS will also provide animation for an IDT Ent. feature to be directed by Christopher Reeve of Superman fame. The unnamed film is being described as an urban fable set in the 1930s.
