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Self-starters.com
A decade after Flash-based toons started
making waves online, they remain a
gatekeeper-free outlet for animators. And
in this excerpt from his new book, Directing
Animation, David B. Levy explores the
reasons why the web
continues to serve as
the ultimate arena
for exercising one’s
creative chops.
20 2010 10 New Ne New York’s Yo York rk’s ASIFA-East ASI SIFA FA-E -Eas ast cre- cr cree-ated
an original 12-month wall cal-
IN2010,
endar as a fundraising device. It fea-
more mo more re or less le less ss fully ful ully ly animated ani nima mate ted webtoon we webt btoo oon series se seri ries es for
Scifi .com, The Existential Adventures of Astro-
Chimp. I also did enough other freelance Flash
tured artwork from some of the Big Apple’s top production work to have learned a lot about
animation talents. Among the 12 artists was pio- how not to effi ciently produce webtoons. I
neering web animation director Xeth Feinberg, worked solo and was able to turn out a fi nished
who (at the calendar launch event) screened a webisode in a week or less. All this work was
new series of self-produced web cartoons called getting seen, and though I was making a living
Ugly Realities, a spoof on the “reality show” at it, web animation still seemed more like a
genre. I’ve known Feinberg since the mid-1990s fl uke than a career.”
and whenever he has a gap between paying A key part of Feinberg’s story helps set
projects, he’ll crank out some new indie shorts, apart animation for the web from TV anima-
which he’ll self-distribute on his websites xeth. tion. Because the director had created his
com and mishmashmedia.com, in addition to early Bulbo series with the intention of self-
sending them out as links to clients, network distributing it on the web, he didn’t have to
executives, colleagues and friends.
fi rst pitch the series to a traditional TV net-
For Feinberg, making indie web shorts and work that might say no. The limitations of the
series is not just a creative outlet, it’s the rea- late-‘90s bandwidths and modem speeds
son he has a career in the fi rst place. As an helped set the simple style for the Bulbo
independent animator and cartoonist with shorts, allowing a single animator/director
a background in CD-ROM animation at the to create, animate and distribute the series
dawn of the new millennium, he had been independently. Most importantly it helped
mastering the potential of Flash (in his words, set up Feinberg to create his next series as a
“the miraculous little computer application that paid project for Scifi .com. While the rules and
makes webtoons possible”) for just over a business model of the internet are still being
year––which practically made him a wizened written more than 10 years later, one thing
old expert in the fi eld. The director explains, “In remains true—the web is still a place where
1999 I was already making my pseudo-silent- someone (like Feinberg) can create without
era black-and-white Bulbo animations, had cut a “gatekeeper” blocking his path, post work
my teeth on a series of children’s interactive on his own “channel” or website and spin
storybook webtoons, and had created the fi rst such visibility into a larger success.
Animation director Dan Meth of web
series The Meth Minute 39 fame
or Groundbreaker—Dan Gr Grou ound ndbr brea eake ker—Dan an Meth Met eth
Many creators owe their start in the biz to Mr.
Fred Seibert who has spawned oodles of
opportunities for pitchers through his initiatives
at Cartoon Network/Hanna-Barbera (What-A-
Cartoon!) and Nickelodeon/Frederator (Oh-
Yeah! Cartoons and Random! Cartoons). Webtoon
director Dan Meth arrived on the animation
scene in 1999 and gradually made a name for
himself through his internet cartoons. Fred hired
Meth in March 2006, and they both began to
search for ways to work with one another on
original content.
What they came up with, The Meth Minute
39, was a very forward-looking series, a
glimpse into the not-too-distant future of web
series animation. A few years earlier, Meth was
a struggling freelancer with a knack for short,
punchy and funny web animations that happened
to score millions of hits. When Meth
came to work for Seibert, the director used
his initial proximity to Seibert to pitch cartoon
ideas for Random! Cartoons (an anthology of
seven-minute standalone cartoons, each acting
as potential pilots for series). Seibert wasn’t
interested in any of Meth’s pilot pitches, but
neither he nor Meth seemed discouraged by
that. Eventually, Meth dreamed up a pitch for
what would become The Meth Minute 39. His
idea was to make a grab-bag series of unrelated
short internet cartoons—one per week,
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