Several other Flash-animated series were bestowed this honor at the 2008 Webby Awards, including Dan Meth’s Internet People, Laith Bahrani’s Creep music video, Conan O’Brien & Jim Gaffigan’s Pale Force series, Kyle Boyd’s W’s World series and Devin Flynn’s Y’all So Stupid.

In the animation category, Nominees for the Webby Award include Jennifer Shiman’s 30-Second Bunnies Theatre and the Heavenly Sword shorts, both of which were animated in Flash.

Bernard Derriman
Adam Phillips
Laith Bahrani

The teaser hints at a love story between a prisoner and a firefly, and more development artwork can be seen at Bahrani’s torchlight gallery, his entertaining approach to displaying development artwork.

For more on Laith and his work, check out his Cold Hard Flash interview from March of 2005.

Last week, Evan Spiridellis and I spoke at the 2006 Flashforward Conference, an event produced by Lynda.com. The title of our session was JibJab’s Animation Process and How a Small Studio Can Reach a Big Audience, and we spoke for just over an hour. Evan walked the audience through the JibJab animation process – from animatic to animation to finished product. I presented several animators and small teams that are reaching big audiences, first which was JibJab, who had over 80 million people watch ‘This Land‘ and ‘Good to be in DC!‘ during the 2004 election. Here’s the slides from my presentation detailing JibJab’s recent successes.

Back then, it was really 2 guys doing it all, and this is the story I repeated many times over during the night.

Next I spoke about Jennifer Shiman and her ’30 Second Bunnies Theatre,’ the Flash-animated series currently airing on Starz! on Demand. As many of you know from reading the CHF interview with Jennifer, she pretty much a one-woman band, writing, animating, and directing alone, and she gets over 1.8 million unique views a month at her angryalien.com site.

Amanita Design was the next studio featured. This 2-man shop out of Brno, Czech Republic is creating viral click-along games like Samorost 2 and linear music videos with a very small team. Jakub Dvorsky, the founder, gets over 500,000 unique views a month at his site.

Weebls-stuff.com is the playground for Weebl, the British animator. He and a small cadre of animators create ‘Weebl & Bob’ and other funny series like ‘Magical Trevor.’ They get a staggering number of cartoon views every month – over 5 million!

Bernard Derriman animated the music video for TISM’s ‘Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me,’ which went on to become a hugely viral video. He animates alone, and he gets over 50,000 unique visitors to his site, arjandpoopy.com, every month. I completely missed posting about Bernard’s holiday ‘Arj and Poopy’ episode, but you can still see it here.

Adam Phillips, who happens to be an old working buddy of Bernard’s, won his 3rd Flashforward festival trophy for his Flash-animated short ‘littleFoot.’ He too is a one-man Flash army, writing, directing and barely sleeping while crafting his Brackenwood series. In a good month, he gets over 300,000 unique visitors to his site.

James Farr, the creator of ‘Xombie,’ is currently in production on a direct-to-DVD feature version of his Flash-animated series. All by his lonesome, deep in the heart of Tulsa, Oklahoma, James has written, animated and produced 7 online ‘Xombie’ shorts, and now he’s teamed up with Wetsand animation to create the long-form version. He has over 1 million subscribers to his ‘Xombie’ mailing list.

Laith Bahrani’s ‘Low Morale’ series brought down the house during our presentation. We screened episode 9, and the crowd went nuts. Very funny stuff. Laith is the sole animator on his shorts, and he’s welcomed over 800,000 visitors to his site since 2004.

And last, but not least, we talked about ‘Queer Duck: The Movie’ which is due to wrap production sometime soon. It’s a Flash-animated feature project penned by Mike Reiss, a Simpsons writer, and Xeth Feinberg is heading up the animation effort. He’s working with a team that’s usually smaller than 10, and he’s been in production since last summer.

While it’s not always about the size of the audience, it’s still impressive to see so few reaching so many. Thanks to everyone for contributing to our presentation, and to Lynda Weinman (of Lynda.com) for hosting us up in Seattle.

Earlier this week, I posted the first half of my interview with Laith Bahrani, the UK animator behind the Flash-animated series ‘Low Morale.’ So grab your legal pad and pen; the conference room is now filling up. Everybody in – the second half is about to begin.

AARON SIMPSON: How did the idea of the ‘Creep‘ video first hit you?
LAITH BAHRANI: It had always been a major ambition of mine to animate something to a Radiohead track so the idea basically started as an experiment to see how the Low Morale character would look lip syncing a song. 12 billion keyframes later, and the bastard was singing the whole thing before jumping out a window.

AARON: How long did the ‘Creep’ project take you to produce?
LAITH: About 4 months, or 350 hours. It was done every night after my day job – I’d get home at about 6pm, and work on it till 1/2am every night for 4 months. Looking back on it, I think Macromedia might have implanted a ‘keyframe chip’ in my brain, and were actually controlling me in an experiment to see how many keyframes it would take to kill a man. Unlucky!! I’m still alive! Bwhahaha… etc.

AARON: Is this video a web-only project, or has it been converted to other mediums like TV or DVD?
LAITH: I’ve got a DVD version, and I’ve got a few mails from people asking if they can buy it, but without Radiohead’s say-so, I’m not doing anything.

AARON: How did you produce the blur effects in the window jump sequence?
LAITH: Photoshop and PNG’s. Wall was created in flash, exported out, blurred in Photoshop and then brought back in and tweened till it hurt.

AARON: How has your ‘Low Morale’ series been received at your office?
LAITH: Pretty well I think – apparently it was the most viewed site in the office for a while. I’m fairly confident a few sales people around the place were trying desperately to work out if they were part of the parody. Not that any of them will read this, but for the record, you all were.

AARON: Have you ever personally seen someone have a workplace meltdown?
LAITH: I’ve seen it a few times. It ain’t pleasant.

AARON: Do you know if the members of ‘Radiohead’ have seen your video?
LAITH: I know the marketing agency that handle Radiohead’s merchandise and tickets have seen it and they all loved it. Unfortunately nothing further has come from it other than some praise – which does make me feel warm and fuzzy – but doesn’t put bread or jam on the table.

AARON: Do you plan on creating any more music video ‘Low Morale’ projects?
LAITH: Already got one on the go – a music video for a new up and coming band in the UK. Low Morale isn’t the direct character, but he will feature in the opening of the vid, a preview of which will be featured on a microsite monkeehub have developed for the piece.

Oh, and I’ll be revamping the whole Low Morale site/series in the coming year, with lots of updates and changes. What I actually mean by that is, I’ll be adding a Cafepress T-shirt page.

AARON: If you could create an animated video for another band, who would it be?
LAITH: Tough one. There’s a lot of bands I’d love to work with. Ultimately I would love more than anything to be commissioned to do a new Radiohead music vid. Others at the top of the bunch at the mo would have to be: Elbow, Snow Patrol, Travis, PJ Harvey, Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Prodigy.

AARON: Did you study animation?
LAITH: Only in the sense I’ve been drawing since before I could walk, and I grew up on old style Warner Bros. cartoons. I’ve had no formal education/training in animation.

AARON: What graphic artists inspire you?
LAITH: Without meaning to sound conceited or anything, I don’t find I get a lot inspiration directly from other work. It comes more from my own experiences, and just stuff around me. That said, a couple of peeps who I rate and respect: Adam Phillips – of ‘Prowlies‘ fame, and the ‘Weebl & Bob’ creator (although that’s more jealousy than admiration).

AARON: What animation DVDs have you watched lately?
LAITH: ‘Spirited Away,’ Family Guy,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’.

AARON: Do you watch animated television?
LAITH: Only ‘The Simpsons’ when it’s on. To be honest, I watch an appallingly small amount of TV – which is ironic as I just bought myself a bigger TV.

AARON: What project is next?
LAITH: Setting up monkeehub as an animation company – if anyone is interested in animating for monkeehub, and can work for peanuts, drop me a mail at LB@monkeehub.com.

AARON: Thanks for the informative meeting, Laith. Now back to work.

Be very careful when you’re talking with Laith Bahrani. And if you have a history of blathering on and on, without ever making a point, best not talk with the man at all. You see, the UK’s Laith Bahrani makes fun of the long-winded, and he does so in a public place – his Low Morale website. This 12-episode (and counting) Flash-animated series is a celebration of verbal diarrhea, and the suicides that become of it. Laith’s alter-ego, the poor man who ends up butchering himself at the end of each episode, simply can’t stand the yammering of those around him, and his morbid imagination repeatedly brings the suffering to an end.

His most recent effort, a painstakingly animated music video for an acoustic version of Radiohead’s seminal song ‘Creep,’ is this 20-something’s crowning achievement to date. It evokes a more introspective set of emotions than the initial 11 episodes, which were mostly laugh-along, guilty pleasures.

There’s very little story in the ‘Low Morale’ series, and ‘Creep’ is no exception. It’s about the execution – literally. Each time out, we’re treated to a freshly gruesome twist on the lead character’s death wish. And in ‘Creep,’ the technique is also on stage – an elaborate, crawling reveal of an office, inch by inch, chair by chair, one keyframe after another. It’s a wonderful analogy for the seemingly interminable spans of time that can choke the soul right out of an office desk jockey.

Your presence is now requested in the 1st floor conference room for a meeting with Laith Bahrani, creator of ‘Low Morale.’

AARON SIMPSON: What was the first project you created using Macromedia’s Flash software?
LAITH BAHRANI: First project was an animation called ‘Little Red Monkee’ back in 2000. Recognising my unhealthy obsession with monkeys, someone I knew sent me a retro song about a dancing monkey. I made this. After putting it live, and posting on a couple of message boards, it went mental, and got about 10,000 hits a day for a while as it went round the net.

AARON: How did you first start working with the comedy troupe ‘Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie?’
LAITH: During my last year at University (studying multimedia) I found one of the Trolls’ internet sketches. It tickled meh, so I spent 3 days putting a Flash animation to go with the sound (2 characters holding a fictitious interview at Microsoft HQ). I sent them a link just to show them what I’d done, and they offered to pay for it. Which was nice.

AARON: Your animated projects for ‘Dead Trolls’ have been released on DVD. Any word on how well they’re selling?
LAITH: Not the foggiest idea I’m afraid. I wasn’t told about the DVD, and am not receiving any credit or money for the work. Same goes for the T-shirt, mousemat and tea-cups. It’s a cold, harsh world of business out there.

AARON: When you created the first ‘Low Morale’ short, was your intention to do a series?
LAITH: Pretty much, yeh. Me and a couple of mates brainstormed tons of ideas for deaths for the character one afternoon at work. I’ve still got a list of them, and it keeps growing due to suggestions from viewers, some of which are seriously quality I should add. Just wish I had the time to do them all.

AARON: What inspired ‘Low Morale?’
LAITH: My (ex-)day job, as a senior designer in a web/multimedia agency in the UK. ‘Low Morale’ was specifically inspired one afternoon after being yapped at by a sales person for about 20 minutes. The second after they left, I looked over at a work mate who was grinning madly, knowing full well what I’d just endured. I then mimed myself blowing my brains out. He did a mime of chucking himself down the stairs. I did a mime of jumping out of the window. Five minutes of death-mimes later, I sat down and said “that’d make a sweet little animation.” Went home that night and did the first episode.

I’ve recently quit my job however, to go fulltime freelance as an animator. I’m now poor and clothed in a potatoe sack, but at least the only salesperson I have to deal with is me.

AARON: Do you storyboard your ‘Low Morale’ shorts before your begin working in Flash?
LAITH: I tend to use Flash as both the draft/sketch pad and final animation platform, so not that many get storyboarded first. I’ve done a fair few sketches of the character tho, and am currently in the process of getting him modeling and boned in 3D. The thinking behind that is, I want the character to feature in an animation and do that Matrix style bullet time thing – where he jumps and we pan round him. Haven’t seen that done yet, so want to cash in whilst its still fresh.

AARON: The backgrounds in the ‘Low Morale’ episodes seem to be imported bitmaps. Explain your background process.
Very simple. I scanned in a page of my sketch book that I drew the first Low Morale storyboard on and dropped this in.

AARON: The masking technique you use in the ‘Creep’ video to make objects appear to grow looks like a great deal of work. Explain your process.
LAITH: Keyframes. So…. many……… many keyframes. Object is drawn in Flash. Then cut away with the lasso tool to get the organic/peeling effect. Took me 3 hours one night to do a chair. You haven’t felt despair until you turn round after 3 solid hours of work and all you have is a chair appearing. Cried myself to sleep like a newly committed prisoner that night.

AARON: This meeting is hereby adjourned until further notice, whereby we will reconvene to read the second half of the Cold, Hard Flash interview with Laith Bahrani, the creator of ‘Low Morale.’