Musician Bert Brown creates imaginative music videos for his own innovative band Red Abbott. In his latest red-and-white mini-opus, set in a space-age geometric fantasy world filled with mechanized robotic creatures, each figure in the animated piece is representative of the individual band members. "I'm the crowned and bearded chap," says the 26-year-old Brown, who grew up in Massachusetts with his fellow bandmates, and now lives and works in Queens, New York doing motion graphics design for RelaTV Media.

Brown, who was previously spotlighted at The Daily Reel with his video for "These Walls," crafted his "Reversed Sides" video from scratch: hand drawing, composing, storyboarding, directing and animating it all in After Effects. He also produced the song's drums and synths, with the contributions of his fellow Red Abbott musicians Chip Means (guitar, vocals) and J.A. Madera (piano, vocals).

The Sarah Lawrence College grad's original 2.5D animated work is mirrored by his unique musical approach. Each band member of Red Abbott lives in a different city (New York, Portland, Maine; and Charlotte, NC), so their album was formed "by one person coming up with a track for a song, sending that track to the next person who would add to it and send it to the next, and so on until the song was ready to be given a full arrangement with all its new parts," explains Brown. "We completed 12 tracks and our album is now waiting to be printed. It's an electro/rock/indie kind of thing, but with the care given that was allowed from the lack of needing coordinated studio time."

-Anthony Kaufman read more >>

Given the way the U.S. government has responded to the tragedies of 9/11 and Katrina, I've found myself more or less desensitized to conspiracy theories. We're living in a world where anything -- from manufacturing intelligence and outing CIA agents, to hiring nincompoops to run our most critical relief organizations -- is possible.

Then I saw The Shock Doctrine, and my jaw has yet to pick itself up off the floor. If there was ever a short that made you want to click through to Amazon and buy the book on which it was based, this is it.

Based on the book of the same title by Naomi Klein and overseen by Jonás Cuarón's auteur dad Alfonso Cuarón, The Shock Doctrine covers the connection between the radical theories of economist Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate and close advisor to countless heads of state, and the activities of the CIA. To crudely paraphrase Friedman's thesis: disasters, whether they be natural, economic, political, or war-related, are the ideal opportunity to institute extreme economic policies that favor big business. The aftermath of a tsunami, for example, is an ideal time to privatize land, and a military coup is a great way to take over a poor country's oil business. "This is the secret history of the free market," states the film's narrator. "It wasn't born in freedom and democracy -- it was born in shock."

Utilizing a combination of archival footage, animation, and superimposed statistics, Cuarón illustrates his point by presenting a number of examples (Chile, the Falklands, etc.) of how Friedman's theories have been put into practice. It's a stunning piece of agit-prop filmmaking that owes much to the current master of the form, Adam Curtis.

But the filmmakers cleverly steer clear of the most obvious point, namely, how the Bush administration has used Friedman to their advantage. (Iraq, anyone?) That, dear viewer, is up to you.

For more on The Shock Doctrine, visit Klein's Web site or purchase her book. The short is currently screening at this year's Toronto Film Festival.

-Matthew Ross

This send-up of pretty much every Internet fad ever stirs up nostalgia for the distant past -- well, as distant as 2005, anyway. "Internet People" is the perfect time capsule of the early YouTube boom, clever animation and a jaunty tune bringing to life eeriely accurate animated likenesses of Internets Celebrities like Tay Zonday and Lonelygirl15.

Animator and illustrator Dan Meth has become an established name in the world of viral web cartoons, featured by The Daily News, TimeOut NY, Entertainment Weekly, Tech TV, and Howard Stern. "Internet People" is the first episode of the Channel Frederator series Meth Minute 39, a 39-episode series of Meth's animations, each as original as they come. Phat beats were provided by sound designer and music producer Micah Frank.

Just released on Sept. 6th, "Internet People" stands a real chance of going viral. Whether it will feature itself in a potential "Internet People II" remains to be seen.

-Liz Miller

There are very few monogamous fans around these days -- most ultimately serve many masters, loving anime and sci-fi and sitcoms with differing, but no less significant, amounts of passion. Animator Rich Cando is no exception to this rule, and so in 2003, he took that passion and began combining two of his favorite franchises, skillfully recreating the iconic Simpsons opening for the Star Wars universe. The result is a perfect mesh of pop culture, well-animated and with humor to spare.

A graduate of the UCLA Animation Workshop, Cando has been creating Flash animation for the web since 1999, launching his career with his first Star Wars spoof, Star Dudes. "With every internet short I ask myself the questions 'Would I want to see it?' and 'Is it possible to create?'" he says. "With Simpsons Star Wars, the geeky side of me wondered what Empire would look like if it was 'Simpsonized.' Instead of waiting around for the Simpsons creators to release that type of episode, I decided what could I design that wouldn't be too ambitious that I couldn't complete it."

Using Macromedia Flash for all aspects of production except sound (which was mixed using Audacity), Cando began working on the cartoon in 2003, but due to his work schedule would have to stop and start, only finding time in the evenings after work or the weekends. "I would guess that I logged in over 1,000 hours," he says. But it was a labor of love; despite what the ending card might say, Cando prefers to look at this as an homage to both properties. "Both represent brands that I was consumed with at different parts of my life. My attention has moved on to other things with age, but they both hold sweet spots in my heart."

Cando's big hope for Simpsons Star Wars is that it reaches the eyes of those who inspired it. "I always like to think that my cartoons can pass under the nose of the original properties's creators during their busy schedules. It would be nice to know that both Matt [Groening] and George [Lucas] got a quick look at it and know that their work is appreciated." In the meantime, he's focusing on developing his own properties, including the book series History Dudes and more animation projects. "I strive to keep working creatively. It would be a dream to create a property that has the cultural impact of The Simpsons or Star Wars, but even if I just reach a tiny percentage of their success, then life is a fun ride."

The story behind this special effects extravaganza is epic indeed. A long time ago (2003) on a message board far far away (Fanfilms.com, a site devoted to Star Wars fan films), Ryan Wieber and Michael "Dorkman" Scott decided to participate in the forum's first-ever Lightsaber Choreography Competition. Playing upon their reputation as rivals within the Fanfilms.com community, the two friends spent three weekends choreographing and shooting the fight, using Premiere and After Effects to create an Jedi battle for the ages.

Ryan vs. Dorkman won the competition, but never really found an audience outside of the Fanfilms community -- until the advent of of YouTube several years later. "We had always intended to do a sequel eventually, but the audience for such a thing was small and stable, and so it had been on the backburner for several years," says Scott. "But after the original RvD was featured on dozens of high-profile web culture sites, we realized that the time had come to make a follow-up/sequel if we wanted to reach this larger, more fickle audience."

Ryan vs. Dorkman 2 went into production in August 2006, shooting for eight days at the Los Amigos Tortilla Factory in Atlanta, Georgia and then spending several months in post-production. "When we set out to do the film we put a request on our website for donations, so that we could add that much production value to the film," says Scott. "Ultimately we were able to afford not only the film's production, but also a professional score recorded with a 60-piece orchestra at Capitol Studios, Hollywood. The budget was about 40% donations, 60% out of pocket, and it wouldn't have been the same film without the help of our generous fans." The process behind RvD and RvD 2 is detailed thoroughly on the official website, including a fascinating making-of featurette and an extensive FAQ. (On the question of how they do the lightsaber effects: "We used Adobe After Effects to rotoscope the prop blades and add glows to them. Essentially the same way ILM does it.")

Both Scott and Wieber now work within the industry: Scott as a freelance DP and filmmaker, Wieber as a Emmy-nominated compositor and visual effects artist. It was actually RvD that helped Wieber break into the business -- the short attracted the attention of LucasArts, who eventually hired him to work as an effects artist on Knights of the Old Republic II and the Star Wars: Episode III game.

Despite being big fans of the Star Wars franchise, neither Scott or Wieber had had any martial arts or sword training when they began work on Ryan vs. Dorkman. "[We] just watched a lot of movies."

-Liz Miller

"Afterworld" survives. First launched in February on Budweiser's online disaster BudTV, the animated post-apocalyptic adventure has gone from YouTube fame to corporate immortality -- picked up by Sony, and now webcasting on News Corp.'s MySpace, with all the marketing firepower they supply.

Even though the series has been around the web for several months, MySpace TV's general manager Jeff Berman told the LA Times, "We're confident this is going to be an enormous success." Starting Monday, new episodes will be released daily over the next several weeks. The series is also being broadcast on television on the Sci-Fi network in Australia.

Created by TV producer Stan Rogow ("Lizzie McGuire," "Nowhere Man") and written by Brent Friedman ("Mortal Kombat," "The Twilight Zone"), the web series – split into 130 3-minute episodes – chronicles the exploits of a Seattle man on a business trip in New York who survives a mysterious catastrophic event that makes 99% of the earth's population disappear and destroys all working technology. He eventually tries to find his way home.

While the static 2.5D style animation may prove too slow for the kids, "Afterworld" is well made, with an ominous mood and a compelling conspiracy-laden storyline that speaks well for the potential of longstanding online entertainment in the mold of "lonelygirl15" or "Prom Queen."

"What we're trying to do is create a unique form of entertainment as well as an original business model," said Rogow, who recently launched the digital studio Electric Farm Entertainment, which is responsible for producing "Afterworld."

While the MySpace page currently has little information beyond a registration page and some stats on the series' protagonist, the Times story reported that the website will allow fans to explore the journey of the series on their own. "Fans also can suggest plot lines, solve puzzles and interact with some of the characters, who will have their own blogs on MySpace," reported the paper.

"The idea was to create a new hybrid medium for entertainment using these different forms of technology, so that fans can get their daily snack of entertainment when and where they want," Friedman said.

In addition to a second season of "Afterworld," Electric Farm will also produce two other Web series that combine live action and animation, one about zombies in L.A. called "Woke up Dead" and "The Gemini Division," starring Rosario Dawson as a New York cop investigating the bizarre murder of her husband.

-Anthony Kaufman

Saying everything you wanted to know about the deep-sea bioluminescent Lantern Fish (but never thought to ask), this ichthy-rific animated piece has taken art websites by storm, heralded by many fans of the form and posted on YouTube by three separate admirers. The simple, but beautifully drawn video chronicles several types of the fish, observing them morph from one into another in scientific sequence, and climaxing in a psychedelic coda.

"The project came about as an experiment, really," explains Adam Gault, 30, who has worked as a professional motion-graphic artist for television for the last seven years. He met his collaborator, illustrator Stefanie Augustine, while they were both studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. They crafted a similarly poetic graphic-driven piece called "Holiday" (definitely worth checking out) a few years ago.

"Last summer I was in between big projects and looking for something quick and easy to animate," he explains of his fishy friends. "I came across an old print of some lantern fish in an antiques shop, and thought it would be fun to try and animate them. It was fun," he adds, "but unfortunately it wasn't quick."

While Gault complains that it took him almost a year in between paying gigs to complete "Lantern Fish," he also suggests this process may have ultimately benefited the film. "Because I didn't get bored or rush to finish for a deadline, and because it was a personal project, I was able to work way longer on some of the sequences then I might have been able to if it was for a commercial client," he says.

Gault animated the project, while Augustine designed the environments, plants, and fish bones. But Gault credits the piece's dreamy atmosphere to musicians Chris Villepigue and Shelly Bajorek. "I love how it sounds dark and mysterious but still a little whimsical," he says, "and to me it really feels like we're deep under water."

-Anthony Kaufman

Few online documentaries seize The Daily Reel's short attention span, but this mind-expanding, evocatively animated look at the state of the earth is a gripping piece of nonfiction. The first in a series of short animated films presenting new techniques for social and ecological transformation, "Post Modern Times" evolved out of concepts in the best-selling book "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl" by Daniel Pinchbeck, who also narrates the web installments. But opposed to some bland talking-head, the videos communicate Pinchbeck's ideas through wildly inventive stream-of-conscious animated sequences, pioneered by Curious Pictures' Joao Amorim.

"In the animation I wanted to develop a language that was accessible to many people, hip, fun but also psychedelic," says Amorim, who also created The Daily Reel favorite "Ferrets for Freedom." "Usually people, when talking about this subject, tend to use a very cheesy 'New Age' language. I think that limits the audience, so I approached the whole project with the idea of creating a hip graphic language, where symbols take multiple meanings, and their meaning evolves with the film. The main concept behind all of the Graphics is the 'Golden Section' and 'Spirals,'" he explains. "It is pretty much in every animated shot."

Future segments of the series will focus on shamanism, sustainability, alternative energy systems, the Mayan Calendar, quantum physics and synchronicity, human sexuality, and a host of other subjects. Amorim and his team are currently looking for investors to take the project forward. For more info, check out: http://www.postmoderntimes.com.

Enter the fantastical universe of French computer-graphic artist Yannick Puig, where manta rays fly through the air and three-tailed monkeys inhabit the moon. A freelance director who currently lives in Valencia, Spain, where he works at Keytoon Animation Studios, Puig set out to make his latest independent animation "I Live on the Moon" based on the music of French band Kwoon, who in turn, contacted Puig after seeing his last short "Krapooyo," a whimsical CG fable about evolution.

Not only was "I Lived on the Moon" inspired by Kwoon's song -- with its two movements, first calmer and then more fast-paced -- but Puig says he also derived the magical story about a boy and his father visiting the moon from a comic book he painted in the late 1990s.

The concept, he says on his website, was to mix the world of deep sea with deep space. "Two worlds we think so different, but are very close in a lot of ways... the atmosphere, the light, the gravity [and]...stars like bubbles in the sky." He was also inspired by artists like Tim Burton, and Japanese anime guru Hayao Miyazaki and the colors and patterns of both Tibetan and Nepalese art.

To make the film, he used 3Dsmax 8, Photoshop, and AfterEffects (and also plugins for particles and old film effects). "My methodology," he explains, "was at first to cut the 4min30 of the music into different parts. And then I drew the story-board to help me compose plans of cameras." The entire film took about a year to complete.

For more information about "I Lived on the Moon," check out Puig's website.

What the heck are those wild and woolly black-and-white animated characters and what are they doing? Drunk, unruly, violent and spectral, they're entirely unpredictable, self-replicating and strange – a hallucinogenic vision from the minds of New York-based Shilo.

Like many professional design houses that occasionally need to blow off some artistic steam, the production studio has crafted its first creative publication: "We Make it Good," a monograph of what Creative Directors Jose Gomez and Andre Stringer call “design infused storytelling.” Not simply a reel of their commercial work (for MTV, Showtime, Cingular, Scion, and others), the book and DVD also offers four original short films inspired by Shilo's logo – a sad-to-happy face that is the culmination of the animated video.

Stringer calls the short "a chain-reaction of emotions,” he says. “The constant traveling and transformation of all these eccentric characters was the primary motivator for us to create this running, fast-paced piece."

"‘City of Good’ is a very simple concept and story about good and evil, happy and sad, but told in a very different and unusual way," he explains. "For all of these pieces, we have the common theme of emotional transformation; the idea that even in the darkest hours, there is the chance for evolution. That said, however, we weren’t out to change the world when we created these visions. We were just out to have fun and experiment.”

Visit Shilo online at http://www.shilo.tv and check out their equally crazy animated ad spot for the automobile Scion called "Deviants."