Animating Political Messages in 2008
Far less controversial is the delightful website Jib Jab. Jib Jab avoids controversy by giving presidential hopefuls equal time to be picked on. Some of their slick productions have had their world premieres on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Although the company run by Evan and Gregg Spiridellis was founded in Brooklyn, NY in 1999 (before moving to Venice, CA), the company's first real success didn't come until the 2004 U. S. presidential election, when their short with George Bush and John Kerry singing "This Land is Your Land" became an overnight hit. It was written up in the national press and was seen by millions. Today they have a fair-sized staff and produce and sell all kinds of products, including individualized eCards and humorous videos.
Their "Election 2008: Time for Some Campaignin'" premiered on Jay Leno's show on July 15, 2008 with a great deal of coverage by the national press. It is a handsome production with a cast of thousands and a great soundtrack. By clicking on a button, you can insert a photo of your face or someone else's into the video. There is lots more to explore at jibjab.com.
Walt Handelsman is another political cartoonist doing animated Web cartoons, whose work appears on Newsday.com. At the same time, he continues to do cartoons that are nationally syndicated to over 200 newspapers around the world, appearing in Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. He has won every major journalism award for cartooning, including two Pulitzer Prizes and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
In early 2006 Walt taught himself Flash animation. He produces one or two cartoons a month and his work, like the work of Mark Fiore, has an ironic bite to it. Some of Walt's animated cartoons from 2008 take on Hillary and Barack's secret meeting, "McCain vs. Obama: The Summer Olympics" and the high price of gas. In "Those Were the Days," George Bush and Dick Cheney are at the piano singing about the good old days. The second verse of this All in the Family parody begins with George singing, "We went to war with faulty facts..." Cheney continues, "Now were bogged down in Iraq..." Both: "Should have had an exit plan instead of just an attack... Those were the days."
Illustrator Steve Brodner has been doing a series of short films with a limited amount of animation in them for the New Yorker's website (newyorker.com). His series is called The Naked Campaign, and in it he draws (quick sketches) while sharing his intelligent observations about the election process. Asterisk, run by Brian O'Connell and Richard O'Connor, provides the animation.
Xeth Feinberg, who has been active since the turn of the century creating Flash cartoons for the Internet, wrote and animated "Political Quickie: How to Be a Media Pundit." The cartoon was run this year by the Huffington Post and is on xeth.com. He says we shall be seeing "Political Quickie: How to Be a Conservative" and other cartoons in this series on the Internet "before the election." He also animated American Migraine, created by Simpsons writer Tim Long, for the Huffington Post.
Internet animation for political purposes has also been used by at least one well-known politician. Arnold Schwarzenegger used an animated cartoon in 2005 to explain his Proposition 75 -- which required unions to get members' permission before using their dues money for political purposes -- to voters. The three-minute ad was novel enough for National Public Radio to do a news story on it.
How to Make Money on the Internet Yet one can make a living doing Internet animation. Mark Fiore makes his living by selling his work on a non-exclusive basis to several newspapers each week for around $300 a show per site. He has an excellent reputation and, by selling the same item through syndication, he lives comfortably.
His production costs are low as he is basically a one-person production company. He writes, animates and produces each show. He does many of the voices and has three actors he calls upon when he needs a voice he can't do convincingly. For sound effects, he uses stock sounds from a CD library he bought years ago. He pays "very reasonable" royalty fees to a music library. They meet all his needs and it is a convenient system to use.
He says YouTube.com has indirectly helped his business. As more and more websites offer links to YouTube, the professional sites (newspapers, magazines, etc.) feel the pressure to offer the public higher-quality videos not available on YouTube. His online customers include the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and CBS News.
Political Animation and the 2008 Election Karl Cohen is president of ASIFA-SF and teaches animation history at SF State University. He is the author of Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators, as well as hundreds of articles about animation, many published by AWN.
A friend told me he pitched political projects to Internet sites, but he found the pay isn't worth it. He told me, "Billions for politics in this country and nothing for the poor dumb animator dudes. Not to mention limited placement and promotion... so it all went on the back burner."
Will a new generation of artists use the Internet to express their views on the coming election? While we will be checking to see what Mark Fiore, Walt Handelsman and other animators mentioned in this article are up to, we should all be on the lookout for new faces on the Internet or TV. It promises to be an interesting couple of months.
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