Fool Lee has already found Flash animation fame at the 2004 Flashforward Film Festival, where he took home the People’s Choice award. More recently, he’s created a short title ‘Life is Animated’ which takes a rather rapid look at human existence.

Hot on the heels of the 2006 Flashforward Film Festival in Seattle, the next event is already in the planning stages. Austin will host the next gathering from September 11-14th, 2006. And what better time to nominate your favorite Flash short for the Cartoon prize.

A Chinese music video called ‘Dying,’ created by Xiao Fang. Watch below, or see it at leyuan.com. And here’s the SWF.

Jarred Hope is trying to do no less than rewire Flash for animators. He’s currently in the beta testing stage of a plugin called Reanimator, a character animation plugin that allows an animator to build both forward and reverse kinematics (parenting relationships between symbols).

I sat down to tinker with it last weekend, and I can surely imagine Reanimator finding its way into dozens, if not hundreds, of Flash animation studios around the world. There’s still some bugs, and a few confusing elements, but with the right feedback and fixes, Reanimator will allow animators to build intricate character rigs not unlike those found in 3D software or other 2D platforms like ToonBoom.

Over at his website, reanimator.net, Jarrad has launched a SWF preview of his software in motion. If any studios want to be on the beta list, email me and I’ll get you in touch with him.

Back in November of 2005, I wrote about Flash 8 Basic, a slimmed-down version of Flash 8 Professional that’s aimed at animators. Macromedia’s Japanese site has put some serious effort into promoting the software, and they’ve even teamed up with Ryosuke Aoike to help get the word out. What appears to be the first in a series of short ipod-friendly clips is now up on the site, and ready for viewing. As many of us can’t view the m4v format, I’ve converted the short and you can see it below.