Brilliant Digital Entertainment, headed by Kevin Bermeister, is currently co-branding with Entertaindom in the "Multi-Path Movie" serial based on WB's Superman: The Menace of Metallo, a weekly 3D series of seven minute episodes. Banister explains BDE's innovative work as "one of those pseudo broad band technologies that allow us to deliver a broad band-like experience over a narrow band pipe. It's a style of animation that nobody's seen before except maybe in games...it feels like a game but plays like a movie. It's something that a year ago was impossible to do." The BDE/Entertaindom alliance will be strengthen further as they continue working together in creating a new animated online series based on Universal's Xena, the Warrior Princess.

There are many other animated shows to check out on entertaindom.com including additional "native-to-the-web" series such as Floops and Spoofs N' Goofs, Looney Tunes' Cartoon Cinema (a sub-channel which will carry full-length Looney Tunes for the first time anywhere on the web), and Cine Minis, a selection from AtomFilms of popular animated shorts from a variety of sources, all signifying Entertaindom's belief in the future success of online animated fare. They are taking pitches and submissions from a broad variety of independents and artists but Banister states, "One of our favorite things to do is to find a really clever independent, strong point-of-view company or strong group of individuals who actually know how to execute on something and we'll partner with them in a second." He mentions that by way of describing their existing beneficial alliances with Mondo Media, Brilliant Digital and Pulse. From another angle, he continues, "If somebody has been able to do something onto video or onto the web already and they're looking to partner with a company that can do the marketing and the promotion and the sponsorships and the ad sales, etc...that's the kind of people we're looking for, too."

When asked for some parting advice to encourage young animation creatives going forward into the 21st Century, Banister responded, "I guess I would say to them try to become less audio-video centric because there are new techniques and new technologies to create very entertaining animation experiences. Computer literacy for animation as a commercial art form is essential, and I think the economics are going to require that anybody who really wants to make money doing animation is going to have to embrace computers as a tool, simply a tool of their palette. It's apparent that with the creation of entertaindom.com, everything Banister is bringing up today is working to propel us all forward into the art of animation's future on the net.

Fishbar is Honkworm's type of bizarro cool. © Honkworm

Also speaking to this new millennium's arrival, Honkworm's Johan Liedgren had this to say: "If you want to take the 60,000 foot view, I think you can say, well, the 1600s was music, in the 1700s it was theater and then in the 1800s it was literatureand the 1900s, where we have just been, it was TV and film as the predominant media shaping our culture, shaping the way we think, shaping religion, shaping everything. I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't recognize that in the next 100 years, starting January lst, the predominant medium for entertainment and the way people communicate and share their storytelling is going to be the web."

You can see, then, that the New Year 2000 marketplace feels strangely unique, brought about by the interconnectedness of all things new media. It is a time to be both gratified by and grateful to the passionate folks out there who are working hard to make it viable either to show one's completed animated works online or in providing the atmosphere necessary in developing brand new ways of animation expression. Cheers to them all.

Lee Dannacher is an animation producer/sound track director of over 300 half hours of television films, as well as numerous network and video holiday specials. Currently based in New York, she is freelancing in audio, project development and new media productions.