Some of the other successful entries were experiments with style or new technologies. They weren’t successful just because of their look, they were successful because they told great stories with great endings which happened to be done in a certain style or with a certain software.

Judge Baby Bear was so impressed with Golditoon’s animated short that he awarded it with their “It’s Just Right” trophy. He also invited his network executive friend, the Big Bad Wolf, to view it and Wolf liked it so much he offered Golditoons a job. Golditoons pitched her short as an animated series to PBS, Pinocchio’s Broadcasting Service, and soon went into production.

The publicity she got from finishing such a great short was amazing. The entire industry was reading about her project.

Words from the wise: Bill Plympton (left) says “Keep it short,” while Craig McCracken advises “Keep it simple.” Photo credit (left) Sarah Baisley; © AOL Time Warner.

The other animators who worked on the short also added it to their demo reels and could now say they were award-winning animators on a project most people knew about. In fact, Golditoons ended up hiring many of them on her new series. It was a winning situation for everyone.

Golditoons and her talented friends lived happily ever after.

How’s that for an ending?

Wait. Now I remember what I wanted to say before. Actually I wanted to quote some friends of mine regarding shorts.

Mark Simon and his latest book Facial Expressions.

Bill Plympton is the king of independent animators and has made a career out of extremely funny shorts, “Keep it three to five minutes long. Keep it short. Make it cheap. Make it funny.”*

Craig McCracken may not be a fairy tale character, but he is living a fairy tale life partially because he knew how to keep his independent shorts short. “Do something you can do and do it right, as opposed to trying to do something huge and not getting it finished at all. Be one of the people who come up with a simple one-minute idea and then make that one minute really nice.”*

Thanks Craig and Bill. That was short and sweet. Hopefully with your advice, we can all live happily ever after.

Mark Simon is an award-winning animation producer and lecturer who is also the author of Facial Expressions, Producing Independent 2D Character Animation and Storyboards: Motion in Art. He can be found lurking around at www.FunnyToons.tv and may be reached at Mark@FunnyToons.tv. Mark’s books may be found and purchased at www.MarkSimonBooks.com.