At OMMA and Mixx

Animax is in NYC today speaking at OMMA and attending Mixx as part of Advertising Week in the city. Michael was on the panel Video Assets Online: Producing the :15, :30, :60, 2:00 and 8:27 Spot.

Spinal Tap

The final two sites Animax made for Starlight Starbright are live:
• Discovering the Secrets of Spinal Fluid™ teaches children ages 10-15 why spinal fluid holds an important key to diagnosis and treatment, provides the opportunity to examine real slides of spinal fluid, and teaches coping techniques.
• Spotlight on IV’s™ is designed for children ages 6-9 and features virtual nurse "Ima" who provides reassuring information for both novices and veterans of IV procedures and she suggests visualization techniques to make the experience better. Ima also responds to emails.

Blood Test

Blood Tests: Exploring Our Incredible Blood™ provides children ages 10-15 the opportunity to examine actual slides under a virtual microscope, learn coping techniques, discover donor and recipient compatibility, learn information about the composition of human blood and discover what the medical team can learn from a single blood test. This is the next website in a series that Animax produced for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation.

Brand New Elmo

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the debut of the Tickle Me Elmo doll. Now a decade later, a new doll is out and he's hysterical. He cracks himself up, complete with knee slapping, side-splitting, gut-busting, out of control laughter.

For a more contained but still funny Elmo experience, take a look at the Elmo's Potty Time game Animax just launched for Sesame Workshop.

Mini FITC

Animax's Head of Production, Tim Jones, is going to be speaking this Wednesday night at the LA Flash User Group's meeting. His session is entitled The Economics of Producing Original Online Content. It will be a small taste of what he will be presenting at the upcoiming Flash in the Can Hollywood conference. James Talbot of Adobe will also be leading a session called Creating Flash Lite 2 Video Applications.

OMMA Next Week

Michael Bellavia, GM of Animax, will be speaking at OMMA in NYC next Monday on the Advertising Track. The session is entitled Video Assets Online: Producing the :15, :30, :60: 2:00 and 8:27 Spot - Online, a thirty-second spot can turn into sixty seconds. A movie trailer can run for two minutes. A chicken on a motorcycle can do a dozen sixty-second jumps, as long as he hangs onto the audience's attention as well as the handlebars. On client sites, as well as YouTube.com and Google Video, "inventory" for video is frictionless, like shelf space at Amazon.com. How is the production process for video across all platforms changing with the new distribution opportunities online? Is video for TV being edited for online, or is digital video created with an eye towards all channels? Is there a future where video for online will be cut down for TV? The other speakers include: Daniel P. Harris, CEO MediaPass Network; Mark Sitley, Partner and Managing Director, Beyond Belief ; Stephen Axthelm, Managing Director, Axcess Media (and a business development partner of Animax); and Patrick Moorhead, New Media Producer, Avenue A | Razorfish.

Bone Marrow

Next in the series of health related websites Animax produced for Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation is Uncovering the Mysteries of Bone Marrow. The website describes the role that bone marrow plays in the body, offers coping strategies for the procedure, and provides children ages 10-15 with the opportunity to compare actual slides of bone marrow from individuals with different medical conditions.

Radiology from a Kid's Eye View

Medical Imaging: Welcome to the Radiology Center is the next module in the Explorer series Animax developed for Starlight Starbright. This online activity offers children ages 6-10 the opportunity to learn preparation and coping tips, hear actual machine sounds and see results of different tests involved in radiological procedures which can be scary and intimdating for kids.

Living with Kidney Disease

Living with Kidney Disease is the next program in the series of websites Animax created for Stephen Spielberg's charity the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. This Explorer series website prepares teens and pre-teens for the challenges—and benefits—of various kidney disease treatments, and helps them understand the importance of adhering to their treatments. Again, this material is not easy for kids to grasp so the challenge is making it relevant and relatable.

The Starlight folks had an open house last night at their office in the SAG building so we got a chance to see their new digs and meet the whole team. They really do good work so send your love and support their way.

The Fall in Berlin

That's right the Fall in Berlin, not of Berlin. That's when you can go to Pictoplasma's 2nd Conference of Character Design. There's even a studio walk that you can go on to check out all the latest from folks like Baseman, Biskup and even Pimp My Doll. Animax is accepting donations of plane tickets starting now.

Learn Flash Animation

Want to learn how to design and build characters in Flash and produce Flash character animation the right way? Head to the Rich Media Institute this weekend for a session featuring Emmy winner Dave Wolfe of Animax and Animonger who also has worked with Animax. There are only a few seats left, so sign up now.

Kids and Sickle Cell Anemia

Animax just launched another in a series of health related sites for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. The Sickle Cell Slime-O-Rama Game empowers kids to take control of their lives and provides them with basic disease concepts, pain management and coping techniques and communication skills for communicating pain to adults. The online game reinforces the use of the pain scale and encourages appropriate non-pharmacological pain interventions.

Emmy Hardware Arrives!

Finally the wait is over. Animax's Emmy Awards arrived today! Yes, they are heavy. Yes, they are shiny. And yes, it's better to win than to lose.
A big thank you goes out to all the Animax-ers who worked on ESPN's Off-Mikes and to the team at ESPN.com itself for giving us the opportunity to win the first ever broadband Emmy Award - we've made history.

Viral Videos Impact Organ Delivery

 

More viral videos released on the unsuspecting public... In addition to Scoliosis Scott and the Top Shelf, Animax designed and animated another series of Flash animated shorts for AOL and Wonderbox called Danny the Distracted Organ Transplant Delivery Boy. Yes, another winning title. Each of the cartoons have a similar set-up but with different gags. Please note this is not Rated PG or PG-13 content - it's R-Rated, and that's a Hard R. Watch the one above and then go here to watch more of them.

Scoliosis Scott Uncut

Warning - what we are about to show you is NOT part of Animax's recent health-focused projects.
For the past year Animax Entertainment been working with AOL on a bunch of projects and finally the work is launching. Seven new Flash animated shorts featuring Scoliosis Scott (you have to watch to fully understand) were released on AOL's Uncut, their version of YouTube. Working with Wonderbox, Animax designed and animated these lo-fi but very funny viral videos (they actually aren't viral yet, but with your support, they will be!)

Elmo Pottys All The Time

Let's get this potty started! Sesame Workshop just launched Elmo's Potty Time, the Flash animated game Animax Entertainment produced and programmed. Help Elmo and his friends Zoe and Baby Bear decide when they should go to the bathroom before they have an accident. If you know any little kids who need some help understanding the importance of numbers 1 and 2 then plop them in front of this online game for a little while - just make sure they've gone to the bathroom before playing!

Cycstic Fibrosis

Animax has been producing an awful lot of kid-targeted health related broadband material including the pending launch of Disney's Healthy Kids. Over the next week we will be launching several websites for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation to help children living with various diseases like Sickle Cell, spinal disorders, and leukemia better understand the nature of the illness. The first site in the series educates children ages 10-14 about Cycstic Fibrosis, the importance of sticking to their treatments ,and how to deal with the emotional challenges associated with the disease.

Please pass the info along to children and their family members dealing with these health issues. Thanks.

More Aussie News

This news out of Australia is definitely better than the sad news earlier this week about Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.

This week saw the relaunch of a sweepstakes by Qantas featuring Vic the talking Koala created by Animax Entertainment. This time, you can download a fancy Yahoo widget to remind you to enter the contest every day. We'd done something similar to this for Disney on their Countdown to Cars site.

Get Ready to Potty

Animax has been creating something that is absolutely adorable. Yes, we think it's just that cute. We're finishing an online game for Sesame Workshop called Elmo's Potty Time. The game is full of character animation of Elmo and his pals and is a companion to the recently released DVD of the same name. Please do not play this game if it is actually your potty time - you should really go to the bathroom first othwerwise you might have an accident.

Healthy Living

Googly -eyed cartoon characters are increasingly being used to market food to kids - both healthy food and not so healthy food. The latest entrant into the field is Disney who is showcasing their characters on various fruits and vegetables as well as a wider range of processed foods as well. Keep an eye out as Disney starts to become more transparent as to how it addresses the issues of childhood obesity.

Here Comes the Sun

The Toronto Sun (yes, they know how to read in Canada, despite conventional wisdom) wrote an article about the release of Brother Bear 2 and Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and the McKenzie Brothers. For that matter so did the Calgary Sun, and a bunch of others like DVDTalk, Laughing Place, M&C, Kaboose, and Ultimate Disney -- in general the reviews have been positive which is good news for 2D animation, SCTV and the McKenzies. Animated News even included a plug for Animax Entertainment.

R.I.P. Steve Irwin - Croc Hunter

Animax was sad to hear that Steve Irwin was killed by a sting ray over the weekend but at least he was doing what he loved doing. We actually had created an animated version of Steve Hunter to promote MGM's Crocodile Hunter movie a few years back. The flash animated cartoon was distributed across Intermix's network of sites. We're sure the Croc Hunter is now happily exploring that big jungle in the sky.