If you read my write-up on the 1st Annual Channel Frederator Awards, you probably noticed that Jessica Borutski won the Best Flash Cartoon award for her I Like Pandas short. Well, the ChFred gang have released a video of Jessica accepting her award.

Last night at Cinespace in Hollywood, Fred Seibert held the first annual Channel Frederator Awards party. Seibert, the founder of Frederator and former President of Hanna-Barbera studios, attracted a mammoth crowd who enjoyed a continual cartoon screening, video interviews throughout the night and an A-list assembly from the kids animation world.

But the real stars of the night were the winners of the Channel Frederator Awards. Several of the award winning films were produced in Flash, including Jessica Borutski’s musical short I Like Pandas, which won Best Flash Film, and War Photographer by Joel Trussell which took home two awards – Best Music Video and The Producers’ Award. Jossie Malis’ Bendito Machine won for Best Design, Bernard Derriman’s immensely-viral Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me took home Funniest Film, and Ed Skudder’s Flash-animated short The New Guy walked away with the Joe Robot Award, for best use of a robot.

I also saw heaps of great people, including Melissa Wolfe, who not only works for Frederator but also created one of this year’s Random Cartoons (Sparkles and Gloom), Bill Bennett (who co-created Chalkzone), Kris Boban from Liquid Generation, the guys from Six Point Harness Studio and Animax Entertainment and Michael Uman and Luis Blanco from Interspectacular, the NYC shop who was written up here last December for the Discovery Channel work.

Great party, Frederator. I don’t think you have a choice on this one – you’re doing that again next year!

With the 2006 Ottawa International Animation Festival only days away, we’re getting a sneak preview. Each year at OIAF, one of world’s premiere animation festivals, 2 show ideas are pitched in front of a panel of broadcasters as part of a program called PITCH THIS! In attendance are “potential buyers, financiers, partners and industry gurus.”

This year, Dainty Productions, the production company founded by Chris Dainty (‘The Ren and Stimpy Show’) and Jessica Borutski (‘I Like Pandas‘) are delivering a 10 minute pitch for their show called ‘The Constellations.’ The show “is about four best friends who visit us from the stars. By night they light up the sky as star constellations but by day they turn into their ‘mythical constellation’ pre-teen girl forms.” The two have been keeping a faithful production blog that features several sketches, layouts, logos and photos of themselves, and below is their pitch clip, which was animated entirely in Flash.

It’s also worth noting that Chris’ Flash-animated short, ‘Emma Graves,’ which can be seen below, will be screening at OIAF on September 24th.

The other pitch being presented this Thursday is titled ‘Jersey Fresh,’ a Flash-animated series created by Stephanie M. Yuhas that follows “the Wiccan Chicken, a tree-hugging, vegetarian pacifist who happens to be the son of the Devil – The New Jersey Devil.”

Good luck to both teams!

It’s begun! Nextoons: The Nicktoons Film Festival is underway. Last night was the first airing of a bushel-ful of new animation shorts, complements of Nicktoons and Frederator. And for the next 7 nights at midnight (EST), you can catch more cutting-edge animation fresh from the foundry. Nearly every medium is on display – CG, stop-motion, hand-drawn, and of course Flash. Tonight is no exception. Two of the nine shorts in this evening’s presentation are Flash-animated, and the first should be familiar to regular Cold, Hard Flash readers.

I Like Pandas
by Jessica Borutski
This film was recently spotlighted here at CHF, but it looks like Jessica didn’t need much help getting the word out. ‘I Like Pandas’ airs tonight on Nextoons, and next month it will screen in the Canadian Film Showcase at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Beautiful designs, snappy timing, all set the mesmerizing beats of the Brit-band Plode. It’s hard not to like these pandas. Click here for an exclusive clip from ‘I Like Pandas.’

Peeves – Toilet Water
by Scott Lipe
Lo-fi rock licks compliment this lo-fi animation about things that tick off Scott Lipe. The idea and the loose, off-the-cuff narration are what make this project click, and it feels as if these were interstitials created for the MTV Jr. network. The tagline says it all: ‘They’re annoying things, and they make you say “jeez.” They’re your peeves!’ Clips are availablee over at Scott’s site.

If you’re heading out to the Ottawa 05 International Animation Festival next month, don’t miss ‘I Love Pandas.’ It’s a 3-minute Flash-animated film by Jessica Borutski, who cut her teeth working with John K on the ‘Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon’ series. The innocent, sweet music on ‘Pandas’ is provided by Plone, the electronica band out of Birmingham, England.