As part of the ongoing CHF interview series for the In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest, we bring you our first video interview. Tyree Dillihay, who directed the Flash-animated music video for Bomani “D’mite” Armah’s track Read a Book music video while working at Six Point Harness, details the production process, how the BET project landed in his lap, and the overwhelming reaction the video saw on the internet.

I personally think Tyree is being modest about the number of views Read a Book received so far. Of the clips currently still viewable on YouTube, there’s a good 3 million views, and previous clips accounted for millions more. I’d argue that Read a Book was one of the most viewed web clips of 2007.

I also want to direct your attention to Tyree’s Flash-animated short film Differences, which was also produced at Six Point Harness.

Last night’s One Plus Hub Flash Animation event was a huge success. Thanks to all who came out, the Formosa for hosting us, and the biggest thanks to Jill Gilbert, who organized and brought us all together.

We estimated around 175 people made it to the rooftop bar in West Hollywood to hear us celebrate the advances Flash has made in the animation industry in recent years. The speakers included the chiefs of the five major Digital 2D shops in Los Angeles:

• Tim Jones from Animax Entertainment
• Christopher Hamilton from Oddbot
• Ashley Postlewaite from Renegade Animation
• Brendan Burch from Six Point Harness
• Chris P from Titmouse Inc

Some of the themes that were touched upon included that while we all love what Flash can do, that it’s just a tool, and it shouldn’t define our world, or our budgets and expectations. Ashley wished that anyone on the hunt for the right studio approach the 5 Digital 2D shops listed above with an open mind, and let us suggest a solution. We all work with a variety of software options, production designs, artists and budget ranges, so nearly every conceivable look you may be after should be achievable. As Brendan pointed out - we Flash folk often find ourselves fighting off pre-conceived notions of what is achievable in the software. The best answer is - it’s whatever you want it to be, and for those in attendance in West Hollywood, it was a topic that helped get us all together for an amazing night.

Thanks to Heath Corson and Marianne Hayden for the photos.

The latest episode of SuperDeluxe’s Y’all So Stupid is a music video featuring the coolest girls around - the Style Squad. They’re always on their cell phones, and nothing phases them - but they have a deep, dark secret.

Y’all So Stupid was created by Devin Flynn, and along with Seth Cooper, and Joe Kossuth, he produces each episode out of Six Point Harness Studios in Hollywood.

This past Friday, my wife and I attended the 35th Annual Annie Awards, which were held on the UCLA campus for the first time. As you may have read here a few months back, it was a proud night for Flash animation.

The big winner at Royce Hall was undeniably Pixar’s feature film Ratatouille - which wrapped up 10 awards. On the TV side, two series took home a pair of trophies - Robot Chicken and Nickelodeon’s Flash-animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera. The show, which was created by Jorge Gutierrez and his wife Sandra Equihua, walked away with awards for Best Animated Television Production for Children and Character Design in an Animated Television Production, a category Gutierrez was nominated for two years ago. Congrats to Dave Thomas, Tim Yoon, Gabe Swarr, Roman Laney and the crews at Boulder Media and Six Point Harness. [read Cold Hard Flash interviews with Gutierrez and Yoon]

El Tigre was also nominated in two other categories:

• Monica Kennedy for Character Animation in a Television Production
• Shawn Patterson for Music in an Animated Television Production

Below is one of the El Tigre clips Patterson submitted for the awards. Its from episode 9, titled Yellow Pantera.

Sadly, it looks like this award-winning show will be ending this year, but it will surely go out on a high-note. Nickelodeon hasn’t picked up the second season, and as Patterson put it on his MySpace page “all great things come to an end.”In the Best Animated Television Commercial category, Acme Filmworks’ Powershares spot, titled Escape Average, took top honors. This weekend, I asked Dave Wasson, the director of the commercial, about the ceremony and production experience:

When Patrick Warburton announced that our Powershares spot had won I was completely caught off guard. At past Annie Awards, I’d been nominated quite a few times, but had ever won. So I had sort of given up on the idea of taking home a trophy. I tried to get Ron Diamond and Gwynn Adik to join me on stage but they wouldn’t budge (they’d decide to give me “my moment in the sun”). I hadn’t written anything down so I gave a short, rambling thank you speech and staggered off stage.

The schedule on this spot was crazy; three weeks total from the time I got the outline from the agency until the day we delivered the finished spot. That said, of all of the projects I’ve directed, it was actually one of the most fun. I really clicked with the agency creatives right from the start, and they were completely open to me taking their idea and running with it (incidentally, in case any agency executives are reading this, this is the best recipe for good commercials - I’m just sayin’). Dave Knott and I completed the storyboard in two days. The following day I made the animatic. Using Flash I was able to create the character designs and backgrounds in record time.

Even though our crew was small, they were super talented, which made it all the more enjoyable. I contacted Brendan Burch at Six Point Harness Studios and he hooked us up with a couple of his best guys. Saharat Tantivaranyoo did a beautiful job with the character layouts, and James Krenske’s animation is kick ass! Back at Acme Filmworks, I worked with Nic Mermet on After Effects to composite all the elements together and add all of the multi-plane parallax. All in all, it was really a great experience.

[Watch Wasson’s Powershares commercial here at Cold Hard Flash]

Back at the Annie Awards, Flash animation continued to echo throughout the night. The creators of Flash, Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi, were honored with the Ub Iwerks Award, which highlights excellence in technical achievement. I won’t go into much more detail on this, as a we’ll be posting a lengthy interview with all three guys tomorrow.

But in the meantime, here’s a clip that played just prior to their award. It’s a collage of various Flash-animated projects from the last 10 years. Antran Manoogian, the president of ASIFA-Hollywood, asked me to assemble the clip, and I was happy to oblige. It’s simply a hint at all of the great Flash animation out there - we surely left out some incredible projects. Thanks to Antran for the invitation, and to Les Perkins for helping me put this together.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Alongside John Canemaker and Glen Keane, John Kricfalusi accepted his Winsor McCay Award, which honors “career contributions to the art of animation.” John K’s The Ren and Stimpy Show was credited with “reinvigorated television animation,” but he was also noted for his pioneering work on the internet’s first cartoon series - The Goddamn George Liquor Program, which was animated entirely in Flash.

There were also a handful of nominees on Friday representing Flash-animated projects:

BEST ANIMATED SHORT SUBJECT
Chip Wass’ short Mascot Prep – part of Disney’s Shorty McShorts’ Shorts project - animated at Boulder Media

ANIMATION PRODUCTION ARTIST
Natasha Liberman – Growing Up Creepie - Discovery Kids

BEST ANIMATED TELEVISION COMMERCIAL
Esurance Homeowners spot – W!LDBRAIN

BEST ANIMATED TELEVISION PRODUCTION FOR CHILDREN
Little Einsteins – Disney Channel
Peep and the Big Wide World – Discovery Kids

Lastly, I’d like to congratulate my cousin, Elizabeth Harvatine, for her nomination in the Character Animation in a Television Production category. She was honored for her stop-motion animation on Adult Swim’s Morel Orel, and her pal Eric Towner took home the trophy for his work on another stop-motion project - Robot Chicken. (inset photo credit - Tennessee Reid Norton)

Bam Margera, one of the infamous Jackass daredevils, has been animated many times in the past - but mainly as a video game character. But back in 2006, this star of MTV’s Viva La Bam was illustrated into his very own Flash-animated pilot - Bamimation. I found this canceled pilot floating around the web, and am fairly certain it was animated by Six Point Harness in Hollywood.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Wrapping up a year in laughs, Comedy Central called upon Hollywood-based animation studio Six Point Harness to kick off their Last Laugh ‘07 show. The show was hosted by Lewis Black and starred Dave Attell and D.L. Hughley, all of whom were caricatured in the 3:30 minute Flash-animated short titled Last Laugh Squad which opened the show.

Greg Franklin, the in-house director and head of development at Six Point Harness, pointed me to a Flash-animated clip I hadn’t seen. Apparently, half of the web has, as this short film has been viewed on YouTube over 250,000 times. It was animated by Aaron Augenblick and the gang at Augenblick Studios for Louis CK’s HBO comedy special titled Shameless.