A few years back, Trevor Piecham, who resides in Boston, animated his first short film, titled Hyperactive Ingredients. Piecham, who holds a day job at Soup2Nuts, drew the initial keyframes traditionally and then executed the inbetweens in Flash. The short feels ripe for a Spike & Mike’s screening, but you’ll never guess where it ended up - Annecy. That’s right, the highly-regarded French animation festival accepted Piecham’s short, and screened it alongside Augenblick’s Golden Age in a 2007 collection titled Politically incorrect: Why Not?

NSFW - complete with buckets of spew, scat and blood.

I spent this past week in Portland, Oregon for the 1st Annual Platform International Animation Festival. Portland itself was a thrill, and the festival surely lived up to expectations.

I joined Dan Sarto’s (AWN.com) Attack of the Blog: Meet the Bloggers panel on Wednesday (see Charles Zembillas’ photos), and then moderated The Flashers Convention, a panel covering the use of Flash in the world of character animation. Joining me on the panel were Brendan Burch (Six Point Harness), Nina Paley, Delna Bhesania (Bardel), Chris Staples (Cartoon Network) and David SanAngelo (Soup2Nuts).

We covered the benefits of Flash to independent animators, cost savings in the TV world and whether or not ‘Flash’ is still a dirty word in the animation industry. Harmony, the digital 2D software from Toonboom, ended as a topic multiple times, and seems to be making headway versus Flash.

Thanks to all who attended, and to Cartoon Network, Irene Kotlarz and Anne Denman for inviting me. I’ll surely be back next year.

Soup2Nuts recently produced a few new shorts for the PBS series Between the Lions. The award-winning series, which premiered in 2000, is produced by WGBH Boston, with the aim of fostering the literacy skills of its viewers.

Below are two Flash-animated shorts, one featuring The Trampolini Brothers, who help us with adjectives, and the second finds Synonym Sam demonstrating similar words. The animation was produced at Soup2Nuts, who utilized both Flash and After Effects. Between the Lions is a partnership between WGBH Boston, Sirius Thinking Ltd. and Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Soup2Nuts was recently discussed here on CHF regarding The Amazing Colossal Adventures of WordGirl. Between the Lions was featured on CHF back in the summer of 2006.Thanks to Dave Schalfman who passed along the story.

Been lots of Flash animated series activity in recent months, and I’ve been slowly pulling together a list.

PBS KIDS GO! just started running The Amazing Colossal Adventures of WordGirl, a Flash-animated series of 2-minute shorts that run been episodes of Maya & Miguel. The series was created by Soup2Nuts, which is part of Scholastic Media.

Animax Entertainment and ESPN just launched the third season Off-Mikes with a new episode titled Casting Slouch. The Flash-animated series takes audio from the Mike & Mike radio show and re-imagines them as animated moments. Off-Mikes recently won the Spots Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Content for Non-Traditional Platform.

26-episodes of Edgar & Ellen, the Flash-animated series produced by Star Farm Productions, has been acquired by Nickelodeon channels in France, Italy and 7 other markets. The series, which started in book-form, also has a 6-book series in place with 14 international publishers.

As announced in Animation Magazine, Lola and Virginia, a Flash-animated series co-produced by Icon Animation & Millimages, has launched on the Animania HD channel. The 12-minute episodes follow Lola and Virginia, who live in the same neighborhood, but have vastly different lifestyles.

Pucca, the Flash-animated series produced by Studio B Productions, has received a second season order by Jetix Europe. The series is based on characters created by Vooz out of Korea. Pucca also airs in the US on Jetix blocks on Toon Disney.

Cartoon Network Europe has announced a new Flash-animated series for January 2008 - Best Ed. It’s aimed at the 8-12 market, and it’s being developed by Teletoon and Cartoon Network UK and animated by 9 Story Entertainment. The story centers on the unlikely relationship between a dog named Ed and his friend Buddy, a squirrel.