Congrats to Chris Harding and Maura Cluthe, who created Make Mine Shoebox – the 2003 film that was recently awarded Best Flash Film at the Channel Frederator Awards.

This year’s Channel Frederator Awards will take place on June 4th in New York City, and I hereby implore you, as a Flash-loving fool, to go vote – especially in the Best Flash Film category. Last year Jessica Borutski took the top prize for her I Like Pandas short, and this year the 3 finalists should all be familiar to CHF regulars – The Bros. McLeod (The M Man), Doug Bresler (Trapped in the Drive-thru) and Chris Harding (Make Mine Shoebox). We posted about Make Mine Shoebox, a collaboration between Maura Cluthe and Harding, back in 2005 – but let’s enjoy that again…

Alex Dron, who was featured here back in November, is up for the Kiwi Award, which will highlight the top film from New Zealand. His short Fot is up against Mukpuddy’s Sparkle Friends – go vote!

At last month’s Flashforward event in Boston, I presented 5 artists’ work and animation tips as part of a session titled One Man Bands – Flash Animators Going It Alone. For the last 6 or 7 years I’ve mainly worked on medium to large teams, and it dawned on me that most Flash animators around the world are probably going it alone. It sparked my curiosity, so I dove in and started interviewing. You may already know Chris Harding and his work, but below we’ll look a little deeper into his taste, his body of work and his process.

Chris Harding is a 34 year old Flash animator living in Kansas City. He’s a Mac guy and he’s currently animating with Flash 8. His favorite website is mcsweeneys.net, and, at the moment, his favorite animated film is Bruno Bozzetto’s Allegro Non Troppo. Here’s a clip from this 1977 film.

AARON SIMPSON: Which animated film are you best know for?

CHRIS HARDING: That would probably be Learn Self Defense. It was brought on by this theory we had in the US in 2001-2004 that somehow we could fight our way to safety. That all the evil could be destroyed and the world would be safe. So I made a thing about it, and I just self-distributed it in festivals and such. It never really got picked up very much commercially, but it did play in a lot of theaters around the world.

AARON: Here’s a clip from Learn Self Defense:

AARON: And here’s a tutorial Chris assembled which details the creation of a scene from Learn Self Defense:

AARON: Do you prefer to work alone on your original projects?

CHRIS: I prefer working alone 99% of the time. But there are a few people I’ve collaborated with that I love working with and hope to again.

AARON: How do your projects typically begin? Do you draw or write first?

CHRIS: I’m more into the writing, even though I really love to draw. The frame by frame work can be tedious. But I think the results are great enough (or potentially great enough) to keep doing it.

AARON: How do you find the motivation to work on your original material after a long day at work?

CHRIS: The only way for me to motivate myself is with ideas. If I’m in love with an idea enough, and I can’t communicate that idea by any other method I feel the strong need to animate it.

AARON: Do characters need to talk?

CHRIS: The short I’m working on now has no dialogue. So filled a notebook with sketches – hundreds of pages. It’s a lot of fun to get away from so much dialogue and do something completely visual with music.

AARON: Tell us more about this new project.

CHRIS: I’m currently working on an untitled short on the subject of making a living. It features robots.

AARON: While we await that revelation of the title, let’s watch a quick tutorial on how you built the head components for this short:

AARON: And you’ve also given us a sneak peek at a scene from this upcoming short, which is below:

AARON: How do you promote yourself as an artist?

CHRIS: Since I have a full-time day job, all this animation work is done for love. So I’m picky about what I take on. I have a rep– Duck Studios– that looks for projects and stuff. But I don’t work that much. All day I work on other peoples’ projects, so when I’m home I’d normally rather be telling a story that means something to me. Very selfish.

AARON: Is there a part of the animation process you’d like to have done for you?

CHRIS: It’s difficult to imagine doing that. I am a control freak. In some ways it’s like asking what part of parenthood I would out-source.

AARON: About how many seconds can you animate on a good day?

CHRIS: There are days when I can animate 30 seconds. Other days, I sit and stare at the screen. Sometimes I am afraid to even look at or think about my work if I’m stuck or frustrated.

AARON: How long did it take you to learn Flash?

CHRIS: I’d say I started getting the hang of it after a few months.

AARON: What’s been your experience with animation festivals?

CHRIS: I’ve screened in a bunch, but only attended a few. I had a great time and would go to more if I could. They’re great for going directly to an audience. But as I understand it, only a handful really help you commercially– in that you might get any kind of distribution or broadcast deal. But it’s wonderful to think of all those people watching your short on a big screen.

AARON: Do you find the paperless 2D animation process faster than traditional animation?

CHRIS: I suspect it’s much more efficient. But I’ve never really done it any other way.

AARON: Do you use a Wacom tablet?

CHRIS: I use a Wacom a lot now, but it has been a very long transition. I used to draw everything on paper, scan it in, and trace it. But I’ve slowly gotten the hang of drawing right on the computer. I tape a sheet of vellum over my Wacom surface so it’s more like I’m drawing on paper. The added friction feels more natural but wears out your stylus tips over time.

AARON: Has the web helped your career?

CHRIS: As with all of us on the internet, it has made me into a giant celebrity, and obscenely wealthy. It’s also guaranteed to increase your penis size. (OK, actually it’s helped a LOT. It’s a great way to go straight to your audience.)

AARON: What online resources do you rely on?

CHRIS: Without A Box, Cartoon Brew, Cold Hard Flash, Wordpress, The Animation Show.

AARON: What recommendations can you offer to animators just starting out?

CHRIS: If you are planning on writing your own cartoons, you should read a hell of a lot of books and watch a lot of films that aren’t animated. Treat your audience with respect, and they will do the same.

The finalists in the Cartoon competition have been announced for the 14th Flash Film Festival, an online competition. The awards are part of Flashforward2005, and the big winner will be crowned on July 7th in The New Yorker Hotel. The four films in the competition are:

Learn Self Defense
by Chris Harding
Chris is a Cold, Hard Flash regular, and his career and techniques were chronicled back in February of this year. Chris offers this synopsis of the 5-minute ‘Learn Self Defense’ on his website – “After being brutally attacked in an alley, George decides he must learn to protect himself. A cocksure narrator walks him through five practical lessons of self-defense for the citizen on the go– or nation-state on the rampage!” This short is not available on the web, but Chris gave me an opportunity to watch the film and it’s simply excellent. ‘Learn Self Defence’ is slick, stylized and irreverently funny. Check out clips on Chris’ site, and while you’re there Coming into the Flash Film Festival, Chris is on a roll, having just won the Best of the Fest award at the 2005 Kansas City Filmmakers’ Jubilee.

The Adventures of Mr. Coo
by Nacho Rodriguez
Nacho lives in Barcelona, Spain, and he’s animated one of the most entertaining Flash shorts in recent memory. Mr. Coo, a large-nosed, shape-shifting blob, finds himself being chases by his own paper airplane, a savage chair and a toilet that acts more like a xerox machine. There’s an enormously high drawing count in ‘The Adventures of Mr. Coo,’ and it’s almost hard to believe it was all animated by one man. The 25-year old Rodriguez also has extremely strong timing and imagination – he’s essentially Spain’s answer to animation autuers like Don Hertzfeldt and Bill Plympton. I simply love this short, and I can’t wait to see the next in the series, which is reportedly under way.

Manege Frei
by Dyrdee
‘Manege Frei’ is a contemplative Flash short that acts as a metaphor for what we want and what we actually end up doing to get it. ‘Manege Frei’ was animated at the German Urban Design and Communicatiosn company Dyrdee. It’s beautifully designed, and animated quite elaborately. The painted bitmap grass texture adds a nice touch, and the linework is gorgeous. The lighting, the shadows, the color palette – there’s so much to love, I recommend you just stop reading this now and watch.

Taggerz
by Jamie Cason
‘Taggerz’ is an episodic Flash-animated project that follows the Ruffneck Crew, a group of UK graffiti artists. The website offers the following tag – “When your crew is your family, you better hope they’ve got your back.” ‘Taggerz’ is behind a firewall on the BBC site, but it only takes a minute to sign-up, and a working email doesn’t seem to be neccessary.

Now that you’ve watched them all, head on over to the Flash Film Festival site and vote on your favorite. Best of luck to all in the competition.

The Annecy animation festival, held in the southeast of France, highlights a dizzying array of animation from seemingly every country on the globe, and this year is no exception. And, as in the past, the animation palette is varied and all-encompassing. That being said, it should come as no surprise that a few Flash-animated shorts have been nominated for the June 2005 competition.

LEARN SELF DEFENSE
SHORT FILM CATEGORY
I profiled Chris Harding’s work a few months back, and it’s great to see his latest receiving more praise. Originally premiering yesterday at the 2005 SXSW Film Festival, ‘Learn Self Defense,’ “is a basic how-to guide for anyone interested in personal safety and/or world domination.” Well done, Chris, and best of luck in France.

TISM – “EVERYONE HAS HAD MORE SEX THAN ME”
MUSIC VIDEO CATEGORY
Bernard Derriman’s sex-addled bunny has been spinning around the internet like wildfire – crossing my email inbox a good half-dozen times. And now this Flash-animated music video for the band TISM makes the jump into competition at Annecy. I also profiled Bernard’s short back in February regarding his entry into ‘The Greatest Story Never Told‘ animation competition. Congrats again, Bernard!