Channel Frederator Blog

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This classic Jib Jab Passover short is an oldie but goodie. The rapper is Eric Schwartz, aka Smooth-E. In this interview, he shares the origin story of his viral video.

If we had just one, it would have been enough. But here are few more tributes to the thin stuff:

“Matzoh Man” from American Comedy Network:

“20 Things to Do With Matzoh” by Michelle Citrin and William Levin is live action, but just so great that I wanted to share it. Plus, the girl can sing!

—Anne D. Bernstein

Jesse Thorn (seen above with taxidermy) hosts one of the web’s most consistently entertaining interview podcasts: The Sound of Young America. He recently corralled a somewhat-animation-themed trio of innovators at the Integrated Media Association Conference in Atlanta. The panelists were Funky Flash-ness pioneers Bros. Chaps (creators of the pioneering cult webtoon HomeStarRunner), Jeff Olsen (adultswim.com head honcho), and Merlin Mann (who runs productivity and creativity site 43folders.com, among other things). The panel was titled “Blow Up Your Brain” and it’s really worth checking out their conversation about inspiration, celebration, and other essential engines for making Internet coolness. Their comments about how they hate the word “branding” are particularly refreshing. Chock full of insightful concepts like “The mullet approach to doing social media”.

Download here.

And you likely will enjoy this G4 interview with Bros. Chaps. For more on them, see the official HomeStarRunner page and more at the HomeStarRunner Wiki.

—Anne D. Bernstein

COLOURlovers is an amazing website where you can go for endless retinal stimulation. “The Colour and Design Community for Creative Inspiration” offers hundreds of color palettes, patterns, trend reports, color predictions, discussion boards, a blog, and much more. Members contribute their own colors and designs so there is a constant stream of new ideas.

They recently posted a list of their favorite colorful animated shorts from 2008. See if you agree.

And here’s a little timely round-up regarding the importance of red to the Chinese New Year.

And I have no idea why they use the British spelling of “colour” since they are based in Portland. Or if Darius A Monsef IV, the founder, was really born with such an amazing name. Or what exactly an “internet astronaut” is, which he claims to be. I just know…I like this site and blue with a bit of grey (gray?) in it.

—Anne D. Bernstein

YouTube recently expanded their pool of partners. I’m swimming in the pool right now. In order to make money on your clips, the only limitations are that you have to own the rights to what you are uploading, and the clips need to be over 30 seconds in length. You also have to sign up for a Google Adwords account in order to get paid.  

The other thing is that you have to have some popular videos and quite a few subscribers in order to be accepted into the program. While it’s no Internet People, my halloween video The Happy Pumpkin has over 600,000 views. Ironically, this video doesn’t qualify for revenue sharing, since it is under 30 seconds in length. I fell it was responsible for most of my subscribers though. 

One of the cooler features that gets added to your YouTube account is the ability to track your videos. Are people watching it all the [Read more…]

If you crave an antidote to the sappier side of the Holiday Season, you can find a daily dose of grotesque greeetings over at the Creepy Christmas site. Beck Underwood heads this online project which will release one new short film every day up until Christmas. The series launched December 1st with Electrifying Holiday Spirit by illustrator David Goldin. Read about how he made this film over at his Drawger blog.

It’s all very low-budget and home-spun (yet high quality!) and I will definitely be checking in each AM to see what daily disturbances are unwrapped.

A full list of the filmmakers can be found at the Glass Eye Pix site. Upcoming creators include Voltaire, Peter Sis, and Mary Haron. (Glass Eye Pix is a production company run by Beck’s husband Larry Fessenden. They are a super creative couple and Beck was the publisher of a great kids magazine from the late 90s called ZuZu. They [Read more…]

A “boiling” line is the inevitable wobble seen in animation drawn by hand. The effect has even been exaggerated and used as a style choice on popular TV series like Ed, Edd ‘n’ Eddy and Dr. Katz.

Line Boil is also a great new animation blog about character animation in general, founded by the Cold Hard Flash guys. Besides the cool name, Line Boil will have animation, news, and interviews. The site isn’t limited to Flash only stuff (like Cold Hard Flash), so expect to see a much wider range of animation content.

Be sure to give them a visit.

-Floyd Bishop