This was another attempt to make something from start to finish in a single day, but it ended up taking two. It’s also the first time I used ToonBoom instead of Flash for a personal work. I used Animate Pro 2 which, back then (early 2009), was known as Digital Pro.

The response to this one was very encouraging and it helped me decide to do the next “30 Shorts” in ToonBoom as well.

A mental image I’ve had for many years and always wanted to animate it. No, it’s not a personal experience but I’m sure that is the case for kids all over the world.

(People’s Choice – Flash Forward, San Francisco 2007)

This is my favourite project to date. It was an experiment in site traffic where I thought that releasing something new EVERY day without skipping a beat would bring in loads of traffic. Along with it would come AdSense revenue.

The experiment failed miserably because 1 month isn’t long enough to increase traffic. The idea was that at least one of the thirty would go viral, but that wasn’t to be. I concluded that visitor numbers to a site increase over a much longer period and if I had created a 365 Shorts in 365 Days, it may have paid off more handsomely.

Even so, this is the most fun I’ve ever had with animation and don’t regret it one bit. Some of these are my proudest moments in visual gags.

How it worked: each of these was written and animated entirely in a single day. In most cases, around 6 hours. I had a list of ideas and each night, I’d write one on the page, think about it for a bit, then animate it in the morning. Sound effects were recorded and added on the same day, before finally uploading it to the site.

Another Halloween short.

This very short, scary piece was originally intended as a last-minute Halloween piece in 2004, but happened to finally get done 7 months later.

Part 1 -

As with nightShift, this is another true story told to me by my father. Once again, it’s a story he heard from workmates around the fire at morning tea time. In this case it was a young fellow telling the story of his hitchHiking nightmare.

HitchHiker and its sequel got me a lot of recognition long before Brackenwood came along. hitchHiker 2 won me my very first major award (Flash Forward, New York 2003) and inspired me to do bigger and better things with Flash.

Part 2 -

A true story told to me by my father. No, this didn’t happen to him. It happened to an old workmate of his, who told the story one morning at tea break. If this happened to me, I’d never have told anyone!

These are the first Flash movies I ever made. As embarrassing as they are, I leave them here as proof that we all have to start small and clumsy. Since these early beginnings in 2000, I have gone from aimless hobbyist to independent animation professional, earning a decent living, working my dream job from home.

I have these movies to thank for starting things off.