Allan Dye, an animator we’ve written about a number of times before, has picked up the Grand Prize in MyToons’ Get with the Times! HD Animation Contest. His Flash-animated short A.D.D. Jane has landed him a number of prizes include an Adobe’s Creative Suite 3: Master Collection and a trip to NYC where he’ll see his short broadcast on the giant Clear Channel video billboard in Times Square. If you haven’t already seen it, here’s the film, which is embedded in MyToons’ HD player. Click that “FS” button (full-screen) to see the high quality goodness.

Today we’re thrilled to be launching the biggest ColdHardFlash online event yet - The Flash Animation 10: Best Animated (read the press release here). Longtime fans of the site might remember The Flash Animation 10: Most Influential story from 2006, which included hysterical shorts JibJab, Homestar Runner, Happy Tree Friends and many others. That was a celebration of online films that made an impact on our culture, but today we focus on the animation craft itself. We bring you 10 animated shorts produced in Flash, hand-picked by a blue-ribbon panel of judges.

Join us and our sponsor, MyToons, as we pay tribute to the artists who brought these visions to life. Click below and you’ll find lengthy interviews with each of the 10 directors and, of course, the animated shorts themselves.

Flash animators began experimenting with “paperless” animation over 10 years ago. Artists fond of the Adobe creative suite have gone on to create hundreds of thousands of short films, and in an era when 3D animation seems all the rage, Flash animators have ushered in a powerful new wave of 2D animation.

Often derided as a tool that encourages shortcuts and poor illustration work, Flash is also the technological might behind a great deal of truly breathtaking work. Today, along with our main sponsor MyToons.com, “the Premiere Online Animation Community”, we celebrate these films with an online film festival - The Flash Animation 10: Best Animated. Want to know which film took first prize and an Adobe Master Collection valued at US$2,499? Click here to watch the 10 films and find out.

The 10 films featured here were selected by a panel of animation industry rock stars, few of whom are Flash users. This was intentional, as the judging criteria was simply “choose the best animated films,” leaving software and any preconceived notions of the medium behind. The resulting list of 10 films show that artists are simply unbounded.

Note that this isn’t our first Flash Animation 10. Back in 2006, we listed the top 10 Most Influential films animated with Flash. Click here to find out who made the list.

The five judges who shared their time in judging the Flash Animation 10 come from a variety of backgrounds and physical locales. Many thanks to these fine folks, who lent their time and keen eyes to this event. Let’s meet them:

MEGAN O’NEILL
Megan O’Neill is the VP of Acquisitions & Development for Atom, a MTV Networks website of original series, animations and shorts. Besides acquisitions, she oversees the development and production of original series like Hellholes, Possum Death Spree, Aardman Animations’ Pib & Pog and Pes’ Game Over. Her acquisition of JibJab’s political spoof This Land resulted in tens of millions of plays online. Prior to joining Atom, she was the co-founder of Forefront Films, a ten-year old distributor of award-winning shorts worldwide. In 1998, she co-produced Forefront’s first feature film, Relax… It’s Just Sex, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and has been released in over 35 countries worldwide.

ANDREW GORDON
Andrew Gordon has been animating characters professionally for over 14 years. He joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1997 where he animated on A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and most recently, Ratatouille. The characters he has worked on include Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Gill, from Finding Nemo and Edna Mode, the costume designer in The Incredibles. Recently, he has supervised animation for Pixar’s new short film to be released with WALL•E. He is currently working on Toy Story 3. Prior to his work at Pixar, Andrew worked in the Looney Tunes division of Warner Brothers. He is a contributing teacher to Animation Mentor and a founding member of Spline Doctors, a blog/podcast dedicated to animation education.

WARD JENKINS
Ward is an animator and director currently living in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two kids. Formerly from Atlanta, Ward has worked at several award-winning studios such as LAIKA/house and Primal Screen, putting his unique style into various broadcast elements and commercials for the past 12 years. When not at work, Ward is a sought-after designer, illustrator and graffiti writer, evident on his blog, The Ward-O-Matic, where he writes about “art, animation and anything aesthetically pleasing to the eye.” Jenkins also contributes to the highly successful art, illustration, and comics blog, Drawn!

CHRIS FINNEGAN
Chris Finnegan is one of the founders of Screen Novelties, a Los Angeles studio that specializes in stop-motion animation. Chris and partners Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh have produced commercials for clients such as Nike and Hallmark and currently contribute segments to Cartoon Network shows Chowder and Flapjack. They are also developing their own television and feature projects.

RYAN HONEY
Ryan Honey is one of the owners of Buck and the creative director of the Los Angeles office. Founded in 2003, Buck is an award winning, multi-faceted design production company. Buck’s TV spot portfolio showcases world-class skills in motion graphics, live action, editorial, writing, design, animation, visual effects, music and sound design. Currently they have offices in New York and Los Angeles. Clients include Coca-Cola, Dominos, Toyota, Sprint, NBA, Hyundai, Fuel TV, Directv, American Express, Chrysler, Burger King, Comcast, Scion, Nike, GAP, Ford and MTV. Ryan earned a BA in Economics and has a certificate in multimedia from Vancouver Film School.

As discussed here back in December, MyToons has announced their Bumper Blastoff Competition, and the deadline for entries has recently been extended until February 28th.

Todd Ramsay, the mastermind behind the Honkbarn series, took the challenge, and uploaded this short, musical bumper.

We don’t normally announce contests here on the main page, but as the MyToons gang come equipped with a Flash animated promo video (below), we’ll bend the rules a bit.

MyToons, if you don’t know already, is a free online animation community where users can upload and share their creations. The team has officially launched the MyToons Bumper Blastoff competition, and they’re calling on animators to create a MyToons bumper (a commercial for MyToons) in 30 seconds or less. The rules seem pretty simple - just include the MyToons logo in your short and deliver a piece between :05 and :30 seconds by January 21st, 2008, and you need to upload original material. They’re giving out $7,000 in prizes, so get cracking Flash folk!