Solid dramatic films are hard to find on the Internet, what with so much skit-based humor and animated clips. But web design guru Hillman Curtis's latest, "Embrace," an elegantly constructed and emotionally harrowing scenario, shows how effectively it can be done. It is, quite frankly, one of the best online originals we've seen in a long time.

Part of a series of videos about crisis moments (there's also the similarly apocalyptic, though less effective "Roof"), "Embrace" was inspired by a trip that Curtis took in a single engine aircraft in a storm from Pittsburgh many years ago. "It was the roughest flight I've ever had," he recalls, "and my wife said, 'Just say something' to calm them down.

A top digital designer and the head of the 9-year-old New York firm hillmancurtis.com, Curtis has crafted many high-profile websites, music videos, and online documercials, and also is the author of three books: the seminal tome Flash Web Design (translated into 14 languages), MTIV, Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer and most recently, Creating Short Films for the Web. It's that last book that seems to have helped Curtis create the pitch-perfect "Embrace," whose success is derived from a solid, simple concept, strong acting and creative use of sound.

With all his design work, Curtis admits he barely has time to make these personal shorts, nor does he make an effort to promote them or send them to film festivals. "I squeeze these in every quarter, and just put them on my website," he says. He also has a mailing list of roughly 3,500 people that receive updates when he has a new project. "I like not having any expectations or associations with ambition," he explains. "That might change as they get better, but it's just fun to make them and who ever sees them, sees them." And we're glad we did.

The phenomenon of video resumes has been spoofed before, but these tightly edited "bios" (please click here to watch Derek's) shove FunnyMovieInternet's KC Katsaros and Derek Moss into your face, and rub them around for good measure. "For as long as we've had the website, we've been struggling with how to handle the "About Us" section of it," said Moss. "Initially we started out with having jokey written bios for everyone which were all very far from being factually correct. But when we upgraded our post-production to using Final Cut Pro, it opened up so many possibilities that I had this idea of doing video bios in character and having us speak in douchey soundbites."

"I think the fact that Derek was so limited in iMovie and forced to figure out complicated ways to do everything helped him hit the ground running when he got on FCP," said Katsaros. "It's like he had rocks tied to his ankles, then someone suddenly cut them off."

When asked if they would show these videos to a potential employer, Katsaros and Moss are very affirmative. According to Katsaros, "I think they show ability far more than a list of credits.
And if the employer was offended, we probably wouldn't want to work with them anyway."

Tribute... or satire? In this spot-on spoof of the production values and styles of the various leading online video sites, the folks at Panda Smash take us through various incarnations of a first date, according to YouTube, iFilm, AtomFilms, JibJab, CollegeHumor.com, et. al. Even Homestar Runner's animated characters make an appearance.

Founded in October 2006, Panda Smash are Midwesterners Paul Jury and Sam Greenspan, former Northwestern University students who after trying Hollywood screen-writing and producing plays ("only about 500 people saw them," they admit), took to the Internet. Since launching pandasmash.com, the duo have posted more than 80 videos and drawn more than 520,000 views to the site (and that's not including eyeballs from other places such as as YouTube, iFilm and Revver).

Both Jury and Greenspan have comedy backgrounds (Jury did sketch comedy at Northwestern and aspires to be a TV writer; Greenspan does stand-up, provides jokes to radio stations and wants to do the "Mel Brooks/ Zach Braff/ Seth Rogen actor-writer-producer thing"). For now, they'd both like to parlay online success into a living wage. "It would be cool if [Panda Smash] made enough money to become our full-time jobs," says Greenspan, "but we're not holding our breath."

When Posh and Becks arrived at Los Angeles International Airport last week, he was greeted by a posse of photographers -- and a whole bunch of free hamburgers. To promote A&W's new "Moove to American" campaign, a two-person film crew showed up at Terminal 4 with A&W Papa-Burgers. While they never got a chance to share the joy of 100% American beef with the Beckhams, the filmmakers made an impression on many new visitors to our country -- not to mention some very hungry paparazzi.

To supply the 100 burgers consumed over the course of the day, Landon E. Cowan and Heather Fill relied on support from the local Hawthorne A&W franchise for fresh deliveries of cheeseburgers. Fortunately, this arsenal meant that airport personnel was extremely receptive to their presence: "We were giving so many hamburgers to the airport staff that they became our eyes and ears behind-the-scenes, and we ended up becoming a major source of information," says Cowan. "The paparazzi would be coming to us with two questions: what's the latest news, and when does the next shipment of burgers arrive?"

For A&W, going viral is their newest effort to promote what Director of Marketing Tim Mathis refers to as "the best brand no one's heard of." Says Mathis: "Our challenge is that we're not the biggest brand, but have a pretty long history. The hope was that this would be a fun way to introduce ourselves to a different target crew, and get our name out there." Due to Beckham's flight being delayed, Cowan had the chance to reach out to at least one new demographic -- tourists freshly released from Customs, who he welcomed to America with two patties worth of viral promotion.

Meet the dark side of Pixar: Two years in the making, Guy Bar'ely's Pratt Institute CG thesis film was inspired by living in the mean, sometimes unforgiving streets of Brooklyn. "I've always been fascinated by the homeless," he says. "These outcasts of society, seen on the subway and in the streets of New York, seemed like they had very sad stories to tell. But no one was interested in hearing them."

Tired of the lack of disturbing subject matter in popular computer generated animation, Bar'ely says "the time was right to finally break out from these conventions." He calls "Cycle" -- the exquisitely rendered story of a homeless man, his daughter, and the subway -- "a cartoon tragedy."

Bar'ely cites influences such as Dark Days, a documentary about the lives of people living under the city in abandoned subway tunnels, and stylistically, he cites computer game designer Tim Schaffer ("Day of the Tentacle"), Tim Burton, and Pixar (specifically Brad Bird). And for helping him through the difficult times of artistic creation ("had to take Prozac at some point to fight off the anxiety attacks," he admits), he says he couldn't have made the film without the support of his friends and family.

You can see more of Bar'ely's work at www.guybarely.com.

"Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl" reunites the creative team behind viral sensation "I've Got a Crush on Obama" for a "Beat It"/The Warriors-inspired gang fight, mostly shot guerilla-style on the streets of New York. When Obama Girl meets Giuliani Girl, a fierce supporter of the former NY Mayor, the result is a explosion of political debate as represented through dance-offs -- and pillow fights.

For the sequel, according to co-directors Larry Strong and Kevin Arbouet, "we wanted it to be a little more polished, but keep the same kind of comedy." And creator Ben Relles wanted to bring back the character of Obama Girl, in no small part because of actress Amber Lee's inspired improv during the first "Obama Girl" shoot. Thus was born the idea of an enemy from the other side of the political spectrum. "With all the bickering that happens between candidates, I think it's funny to see these two girls mirroring that through song and dance," says Relles. "The pillow fight is a metaphor for the type of cheap attacks that go on during the political campaign."

Strong and Arbouet's credits include several pilots and the feature films Serial and Stream, the latter of which stars Whoopi Goldberg and William Sadler. According to Larry, "It's fun going from one extreme -- working with an Oscar winner -- to running around the street with girls in booty shorts." On which sort of project they prefer, Kevin says "It's whatever satisfies you. Whatever is gonna make Larry and I laugh is what we want to do."

The Obama Girl shorts are the first original content produced for fledgling BarelyPolitical.com, which Relles hopes will become a central place to find all sorts of political comedy, both aggregated and user-generated. BarelyPolitical is officially bipartisan: "We want to put up stuff that's funny. Not stuff that will get our candidate into office."

Creator Casimir Nozkowski continues the "First!" trilogy with this character study of a typical spammer. In three minutes, we are given a chilling glimpse into the self-delusion that enables a man to become a polluter of email boxes. "Why call it spam? Why not call it veal?" asks this most virulent of Internet pests, before busting into some freestyle rap.

The motivation behind both "First!" and "Spam!" was simple: after working on several projects featuring other performers, Nozkowski wanted a chance to get in front of the camera. "Most of the stuff I work on has a much slower editing process," he says, "So with [Spam!], I thought, it'd be really simple to shoot and cut together, and we'll get it done." For for the two hour shoot, director of photography Josh Weisbrot supplied the apartment, peanut butter, and cat -- officially, there is no comment as to whom the bong belongs -- and Nozkowski was able to complete the editing in a week and a half of nights (his days consumed by creating commercials for American Movie Classics).

Although originally Nozkowski had another costume idea in mind for the character of the Spammer, at the last second he decided to switch to the puffy jacket worn in "First!" in order to reenforce the continuity of the series. However, he doesn't mean to imply that the First Guy and the Spammer are the same, rather "all in the same family -- retarded brothers who do this sort of stuff." Asked whether he thinks the men he portrays are inherently good or evil, he believes that "while the "First!" poster would be closer to good, or at least harmless, the character in "Spam!" is inherently evil. He just exists in this super-moral grey area that he maybe manages to justify... But no, he's just totally evil."

A conclusion to the trilogy is planned for later this summer. Its target, for now, remains a mystery.

Words of wisdom from one-eyed anti-sword advocate Trip Fisk: "Swords are not just for decoration, they'll fucking cut you wide open." In this funny webisode created and directed by Drew Hancock, the crotchety Fisk narrates two tales of sword mishaps, "Honey, I Killed Our Son" and "Swords Will Cut Your Fucking Hand Off." Hilariously embracing its low-budget approach, "Cautionary Tales" follows in the footsteps of previous Hancock creations, such as "The Wastelander," a "Mad Max"-like spoof about a renegade and his man-servant, and "Gregory Shitcock P.I.," about a paralyzed detective with an unfortunate name.

Hancock says he got the inspiration to make "Cautionary Tales" after a friend kept a decorative sword on his office desk. "If he had been properly warned of the dangers of owning a sword, he may not have accidentally decapitated himself."

Repped by United Talent Agency, the L.A.-based Hancock has directed ads for Converse shoes and promos for MTV and Adult Swim. He originally wrote "Cautionary Tales" for a short live sketch comedy show on VH1 called acceptable.tv. "I guess the suits thought it too absurd, because it was never produced," he says. "A couple months later, armed with a camera and a crusty old man in a wig, I made it on my own." And thousands of sword-owners will be safer because of it.

Six Finger Fist's approach to producing comedy is to do it often and do it fast -- specifically, "it" is a new 48-hour shoot every month. In the week leading up to production, website visitors vote to select one of several prospective titles, and then Saturday morning the team (which consists of Rick Castaneda, Lawrence Everson, Dwayne Bartholomew, Samira Izadifar, Zach Turner, and Arian Saleh) begins the collaborative writing, shooting, and editing process, culminating in an explosion of video comedy Monday morning. When faced with the title for their June short, There's Something You Should Know, Castaneda observed that "Any time someone tells you 'there's something you should know,' it's usually bad. I was trying to think of who the funniest person to break up with might be, and so I asked what if your reflection just decided to break up with you one day, because you were a loser?"

The majority of the mirror effects were created via split-screening, although some rotoscoping was required for a few moments, such as when the man in the mirror (played by Turner) touches the mirror's surface. According to Turner, "It was important for my body not to overlap the reflection, or vice versa, since we only had 48 hours to do it, and that would've made keying A LOT harder." After Effects was key for rotoscoping and color correction.

Technically impressive for a simple concept, Something You Should Know's sound design is particularly strong, especially given the time constraints. Lawrence Everson, who handles the sound for all of Six Finger Fist's shorts, took advantage of the good sound conditions to do a flawless stereo mix that convincingly sells the idea of someone talking to his own reflection. "I always mix stereo, or try to as much as possible," Everson says, "Even though I know sometimes people won't get the effect (especially since with much online media it's being watched through tiny computer speakers), it gives you more room to be creative or expressive." The bulk of the mixing was done in Final Cut Pro, with some use of Pro Tools for fixes and sound effects.

Overall, the biggest challenge was acting against one's own reflection. Said Castaneda: "That's why I'm squinting so much -- because looking at myself was very off-putting."

From Spite Your Face Productions's Tony Mines, the London-based director of our favorite lego-film "Spider-Man: The Peril of Doc Ock," comes this rocking animated video for The Errorplain's new single "Learn 'Em." Inspired by old Nintendo 8-bit hand-held video games, "because it just looks cool," Mines writes on his blog, the project was made as an experiment with 2-frame animation.