Taking Back Sunday, an emo band out of Amityville, Long Island, has teamed up with fanscape.com to unveil a music video contest. An mp3 for their track ‘Error Operator’ is being given out to all comers, in hopes that the audience will return it by February 18th along with a rock-solid Flash-animated video.

What I love most about this contest is that Taking Back Sunday and Fanscape have mandated that all videos be submitted in the .SWF format. So download the track, plan out 3 minutes of animation and win an Xbox 360.

For more information on the band, check out their official site, and their MySpace page.

The Washington Post has launched the 2005 Editorial Shorts Digital Animation Competition. Submissions should focus on current political or topical issues, and be no more than 3 minutes in length. Entries will be judged on “humor, originality, use of the medium and topical relevance.” Of course, Flash animations are welcomed, but so are all other forms of animation, as long as you can transfer it to a Quicktime file.

According to the competition website, the judges are from the editorial divisions at washingtonpost.com, and members of RES digital media magazine. The deadline for entries is December 31st, 2005, and the competition is only open to legal residents of the US who are 18 years or older. Winners will be announced in January 2006, and the prize appears to be a high-profile placement on washingtonpost.com.

If you’re interested in what a strong, topical editorial animation looks like, go no further than JibJab.com for your 10th viewing of ‘This Land,’ or head over to Mark Fiore’s website and view his latest Flash work.