To a query regarding sponsorships, merchandising and e-commerce, Ulin responds by saying, "In terms of wildbrain.com, there's so many different elements and functions. We're building up internal capacity for some of them and forging partnerships and turn-key operations for other elements." There's time enough, he implies, to give their new general manager, John Kirkland, a chance to take all that to the next level while their strong creative staff of veteran producers concentrate on the ambitious areas of channel programming already at hand. An important message Ulin would have us understand is that, "Wild Brain is not constrained by looking to create something that fits into a particular pattern or mold... and the Internet, and the tools for producing for the Internet, create a different palette. I think it pushes the bounds of creativity and potential. We hope to do that and people should be encouraged that there will be showcases for that kind of work."

Nicholas Peterson's Mum is just one of roughly 500 films available at the AtomFilms site. © AtomFilms.

An Explosion of Nuclear Strength
Cory Wynne, animation content manager for AtomFilms, is downright contagious in his enthusiasm not only for his own company's impressive expansion on the net; but also for the whole "blurring-of-the-lines" between the separate distributor/ producer/creator roles of the past. "I think the reason you're seeing so many strategic partnerships develop is because we're all validating the same space. We need each other." He goes on to say AtomFilms is "enjoying the fact that this obviously affords us a lot more opportunities to develop animators' works and to deliver them for the audiences." That ever-present attention and support for independent filmmakers is at the very center of AtomFilms' philosophy as they strive to bring the very best in short film content to as broad a spectrum of viewers as possible. Dubbing themselves a next-generation entertainment company, AtomFilms' primary work is in licensing and marketing high quality shorts and digital media, and distributing their catalog content to a wide variety of traditional and emerging channels including cable companies, television, Internet portals and airlines.

Going online only 10 short months ago, AtomFilms has already made a huge imprint with its ever-expanding offering of animation styles and formats. They have received kudos from every angle of the entertainment community including net-creative Jaime Levy, CEO of Electronic Hollywood, who describes atomfilms.com's site design as "a very Web mature Flash interface with tons of great films to watch at all different connection speeds." For independent filmmaker/animation producer Zahra Dowlatabadi, AtomFilms' web site represents the exciting ability of "creating new forums where filmmakers and their audience can have the most direct and unmitigated relationship." For the typical viewer, atomfilms.com has simply become a hot place to see favorite animated shorts unavailable to them on any other medium. These responses are rewarding and greatly important to AtomFilms' overall push to expand the scope of its work in short form entertainment. Moreover, the company's recent and substantial infusion of new capital investment will certainly help to increase their odds of moving ahead rapidly in this novel Internet environment.

The current library of AtomFilms is "around 500 pieces with 40-50% of that in the animation category," states Wynne. The site divides their Animation Channel into three sub-channels: "All Animation," "Cartoon and Clay Animation" and "Flash Animation" -- designed with the purpose of easing viewer access in finding exactly what type of material they want to screen. New alliances and strategic partnerships are coming fast and furious for this young company. On the animation side, one of the larger deals took place last October when, upon the launching of AtomFilms Europe, they forged an agreement with UK-based Aardman Animations, the creators of Wallace and Gromit, to license the majority of their short form content for both on and off-line distribution. Big-time leveraging of this Academy Award winning material came later in November when AtomFilms' announced it would provide select original shorts to RealNetworks, Inc.'s streaming "best of the web" service. It is there AtomFilms' intends to showcase Aardman's extremely well-liked Creature Comforts.