Andrew McPhillips won the Jury Prize at this year's Slamdance Festival with his Blood Will Tell. All images courtesy of Slamdance Festival.

It seems that every year the Animated Shorts Block at the Slamdance Film Festival gets better and better. This year's crop of shorts is no exception. The films include political satire, explorations of self, abstract expressions of primal human emotions and Saturday morning cartoons. Most of the work is achieved by individual artists following their own individual visions, sometimes with a little help from their friends. Few receive any substantial funding, but rather are created from the creators' own pockets and worked on in their spare time over weeks, months, even years. This dedication results in films that are truly independent and worthy of our applause.

At this year's Slamdance Festival, independent work was highlighted. Bush vs Bin Laden, a satirical commentary, imagines an Old West shootout between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden.

Bush vs Bin Laden (world premiere, 2008, 4 min, USA) is a satirical commentary on what might happen if President George W. Bush could face off with Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in an Old West shootout. Much as in the real life showdown between Bush and Bin Laden, they turn out to be the only ones left standing in a contest where everybody else ends up dead.

Director Darren Way originally worked as a puppeteer, performing live marionette shows for years. "It was a lot of fun, but a hard way to make a living," admits Way. "The older I get, the more I want to stay home and create in my studio." Now he adds an armature to the marionettes so that their positions can be slowly moved during the shooting of the stop-motion animations that he creates. "It's pretty much all about the puppets," says Way, who was an art student at Cal State Fullerton with a degree in drawing and painting before he moved to sculpting and puppet-making. His work in puppetry, stop-motion animation, even editing is all self-taught.

The puppets are carved out of choice pieces of found local hardwood, which Way never paints, instead using the natural tones of the wood finished with olive oil to give them a flesh-like appearance. Each figure takes two full 50-hour weeks to carve. "They're a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. It gives a totally unique look to my animation. It is not what anybody else is doing." When he is not making films, Way sells his creations at crafts fairs across the country.

Way lives in a frontier-era home in the mountains -- a perfect location for the story. He built a minimal set close to the puppets and used forced perspective to include his outbuildings in the background. "I got away without building an extensive set like I thought I would have to," reveals Way. "It works because you can't tell how far away they are." Very little was purchased. Most of the materials were found and Way had access to wood scraps from a local lumber mill.