DIGIPENDENCE - declare yours!

GoAnimate is a fun site which allows anyone with a little bit of time and an idea to create attractive Flash cartoons. No knowledge of animation techniques, sophisticated software or computer programming is required. One is able to make an account, and get started within just a few minutes. A clever move - one which is certain to increase GoAnimate’s appeal - is the licensing of famous assets such as Underdog, Street Fighter, and the venerable Star Trek franchise.

Additional details:

Go!Animate is a free online animation tool that enables everyone — no artistic ability required — to create their own animated stories and share them with the world.

And now, after signing a licensing deal with CBS Consumer Products, Go!Animate is giving users the ability to create their own STAR TREK animated adventures. This is the first ever officially-sanctioned use of STAR TREK material for the purpose of user-generated content within an online medium.

STAR TREK fans are amongst the most dedicated fans on the planet, and they often look for new ways to highlight their enthusiasm via creative channels. Go!Animate provides a platform that enables anyone to simply and easily create their own STAR TREK animated stories - with absolutely no experience in animation necessary. As a result, this new collaboration with CBS Consumer Products is giving millions of dedicated Star Trek fans a tool in which to creatively express themselves and share with the global STAR TREK community.

Historically, the creation of animation required specific skills, limiting those who can express their creativity. Go!Animate.com’s online application allows you to create animations without any drawing talent or the need for a technical understanding of advanced software programs such as Flash. As a result, STAR TREK fans both young and old - with no need for drawing or technical ability - can easily create their own customized STAR TREK animations with just a few clicks.

Users will be able to activate animated versions of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and many other original STAR TREK characters with a full range of actions and expressions, in addition to dialogue and musical themes. Once a STAR TREK animation is created, users can share it with their friends, social networks, and the greater Star Trek community as a whole. Go!Animate’s platform makes it simple to save and share your creations right from the site, including integration of both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail contacts, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Reddit.

In addition to Go!Animate’s full animation platform that enables the creation of full-fledged animated episodes, Go!Animate also gives you the option to create quick animated “eMessages”. eMessages are pre-defined templates that already include different characters and scenes, enabling you to simply add dialogue and then send a quick animated note to your friends. With the launch of the new STAR TREK content, Go!Animate will also launch five new STAR TREK eMessage templates, with more to come over the months leading up to the new film.

As avid fans of both STAR TREK and animation, this has been an incredibly exciting project for us here at Go!Animate. The global STAR TREK community has a long history of expressing their passion for STAR TREK through creative channels. This partnership with CBS Consumer Products gives all STAR TREK fans a simple - and legal - way to interact with the content and express themselves in an all new way. Regardless of the content, we are happy to enable people worldwide with a new creative vehicle in which they can feature their passions.

One of my favourite sites, Fan Cinema Today (FCT), has retooled for its second anniversary. Despite having watched a lot of fan films in my day, I only recently discovered FCT which, as its mandate, covers the world of fan-produced moving entertainment—primarily (and almost exclusively) “fan films.” The site is run by Clive Young, author of “Homemade HOllywood”, the first book about fan films (expect a book review soon). One of the most fun things to do at the site is reloading the page to cycle through scenes.

One way to get your films seen by more people is to enter festivals. With so many around the world, it can be hard to keep track and decide which ones might be the best to showcase your work. That’s where the internet comes in; two of the best film and video festival and contest information sites are

Short Film Central: “Short Film Central was started in 2005 by Andrew Goode and Michael Sydenham. Andrew has been a short film director, producer, animator, film festival assistant and festival-goer, with a particular enthusiasm for short films. Michael is a technologist who is resposible for developing our systems.” and Without a Box, a division of IMdb which is owned by Amazon.

You can sign up for a free membership at both sites as well as free newsletters so that notifications and reminders of film festivals and events come right to your inbox.

When it comes to contests, the best place to check is VidOpp, the video contest clearing house, “the intersection of video and opportunity”.

One of their site regulars, Joel Levinson, sent them a thank you note after winning the “What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar” contest they had posted. Oh yeah, he won ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS (U$100,000), and ended up featured in a front page article in the NY Times talking about how he has won over $200,000 in video contests, most of which he learned about from VidOpp.com.

The incredibly successful VidOpps site has spawned VidBids

VidBids is meant to be a simple marketplace for talented video professionals and the businesses that need them to find each other.

We have built up a community of over 7000 video pros over the last 2+ years, and we love to help them find projects.

TV was once the only way to get video to the public. Now, we have inexpensive (and often free), easy to use video hosting sites for businesses to distribute video on their own websites, on news sites, and on video sharing sites. With the distribution problem solved, the demand for business video has risen dramatically.

At VidBids, we provide a fast, easy, secure platform for getting that video project done - the customer testimonial, the case study, the sales presentation, the training course - whatever you have in mind, we can connect you with professionals in your area that will bid for your business.

Post a project, review the bids, compare the portfolios, and choose a video professional that fits your budget and can work to your schedule. It is that easy, as it should be.

/Film’s new ‘GeekBomb’ columnist Kevin Kelly has hit one out of the park with his kickass debut article: A Brief History of Stop-Motion Animation

After posting about Blender Magazine’s 19th issue, a publication which

was started for the blender community, having the aim of publishing a bi-monthly PDF magazine; free for download. The goal of the magazine is to provide quality learning content for the blender community, from the efforts of the community itself.

I thought that I’d check out their previous eighteen issues, all of which pre-date digipendence.com. This post will give a quick review of what’s available. Released under under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 license, they - along with work/example files - can be downloaded individually (see each description), or in one large zipped file (it’s a tar.gz).

ISSUE 1 - Mechanical Modeling: Features Tutorials on Modeling, Texturing, and Animating a robot, tutorial on Plane line intersection, and more… as well as new flashes on Gimp 2.34, Blender 2.40, and the Montreal Conference. download issue+files	ISSUE 2 - Animation Special: Features Tutorials on Spider Rigging, Game Character Rigging, Animating falling feathers, the Making of “Age of Steam” (Issue 1 cover), and more… as well as articles on Project Orange, Foss.in report, and review of Stop Staring book. download issue+files
ISSUE 3 - Rendering Special: Features Articles/Tutorials on Using Yafray in professional environments, Learning how to use the Sunflow rendering system, Yafray Caustics, Yafray GI & HDRI, DPI (Dots per inch) explained, and Rendering optimization, and review of Digital Lighting & Rendering book. download issue+files	ISSUE 4 - Character Modeling: Features Articles/Tutorials on Character Modeling at Plumiferos, Modeling a Butterfly, Rapid Prototyping in Blender, Blender2Pov, Character Design 2D sketch to 3D, ResPower Super/Farm, MakeHuman, and more… download issue+files
ISSUE 5 - Modeling Techniques & Blender Scripts: Features Articles/Tutorials on Blender Material Library, Gen3 - Tree Generator, UV Mapping Techniques, Blueprint Setup, Spin Modeling, Modeling Rupert, A Sonorous Trip, and more… download issue+files	ISSUE 6 - Blender for Architecture & Games Special: Features Articles/Tutorials on Blender Normal Mapping, Architecture Visualization Tips & Tricks, From 2D Cad Drawing to Blender, The making of Cathedral, The making of Burley Brawl Scene, and more… download issue+files
ISSUE 7 - Blender Materials: Features Articles/Tutorials on Artistic Glow Using Blender’s Compositor Nodes, DOF Using Blender’s Compositor Nodes, Creating a Realistic Environment for BGE, Blender and Displacement Mapping, Blender and Vector Blur, and more… download issue+files	ISSUE 8 Car Modeling Mega Issue: Features Articles/Tutorials on Textured Metal Shaders, Making a Low Poly Car, Modeling a Car Rim, Modeling Tires, Making of ‘Cutting The Waves’, Making of Scale Model, Car Body Modeling: An Approach and more… download issue+files
ISSUE 9 - Space: Features Articles/Tutorials on Creating Heatwave Exhaust Effect with the Displace Modifier, How to Make A Realistic Planet In Blender, Making A Sun like Star in Blender, Modeling An Alien Using Subsurf, Texturing An Alien Using Nodes, Modeling a Lowpoly Spaceship, The Making of “Project Utopia” and more… download issue+files	ISSUE 10 - Organics: Features Articles/Tutorials on Taonui Face Modeling, Managing Metaballs, Modeling & Rigging a Frog, BlenRig: An Introduction, Froggy Walkthrough, Extinction Level Event, an Animated Castle Effect Walkthrough, Another Interview in ‘Meet The Blenderhead’, & more… download issue+files
ISSUE 11 - Mechanical: Features Articles/Tutorials on Producing Models with Accuracy, Amateur Mechanisms, Solid Device Construction, How to create a ‘Weld Joint’, Using Blender As NURBS application, Burned Bridges - Walkthrough, Another Interview in ‘Meet The Blenderhead’, & more… download issue+files	ISSUE 12 - Texturing Special: Features Articles/Tutorials on Multi-Layered Plastic Shaders, Tangent Space Normal Maps, Creating Realistic Flame, Blender-to-Kerkythea, Texture Seam Removal, Roof Tops - Making of, Another Interview in ‘Meet The Blenderhead’, & more… download issue+files
ISSUE 13 - Fantasy Special!: Features Articles/Tutorials on Making a ‘Realistic’ Underwater Rift, Creating a ‘Tree Character’, Using ‘Auto Masonry’ Script, Video Editing in Blender, Making of - Andy Tear Liquid Tubes, Making of - Glass Girl, Meet the BlenderArt Team, & more… download issue+files	ISSUE 14 - Cartoon & Game Engine: Features Articles/Tutorials on Modeling & Rigging a Cartoon-looking Spider, Making a Low Poly Character from High Poly, Material Retouching using Node & Vertex Color, Creating a Cartoony animation with Blender, Learning the Blender Game Engine, Blender Game Networking, Making of Orion Tear, Making of a Teenage Duck, Making of Monkey Game Project, Case Study on Blender’s Realtime Engine & more… download issue+files
ISSUE 15 - Animation: Features Articles/Tutorials on Taking Your Animation to the Next Level, Acting for Animation, Product Modeling: SDS and Details, Product Rendering, Hero’s Blender Animation’s, Facial Expressions in Stupidus, Einstein Dwarf, Blender in a Classroom & more… download issue+files	ISSUE 16 - Wow Factor: Features Articles/Tutorials on Skin Shading using multi-layered SSS, Realistic Smoke in Blender, Twirl of Smoke in Blender, Making hair for Wolf, Gone with the waves, Burn Them All, Procedurally Driven Scene, Making - Meet the Eye & more… download issue+files
ISSUE 17 - Lights, Camera, Action!!!: Features Articles/Tutorials on Making lightsabers using Blender’s composite nodes, 3 Strip Technicolor Conversion, Baking Light Projection and Shadows, Using the Sequence Editor, Lighting: Plan it out, Interview with ‘Tony Mullen’, Interview with ‘Allan Brito’, a book review of ‘Blender 3d Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery & more… download issue+files	ISSUE 18 - Landscapes, Environments & Sets!: Features Articles/Tutorials on Baking AO Maps for Terrain Using Blender 3D, Game Physics and Paths, CNC Machining with Blender, Create Scenes with a Seamless Background, Making of: A Big City For A Game, Making of: A Fantasy Landscape, Making of: The Scene of a Dream, Interview with Roland Hess & more… download issue+files