Bottom Line: Combining hand drawn animation with live action, Drawn By Pain delivers one of the most unique experiences you’ll have the pleasure of seeing on or off the Internet.

Young Emily once watched the world through blinders so the only thing she saw was the page on which she drew. Isolated, she tried to look away as her father gave her mother lessons in brutality from which she could only hide in her mind. But that rage, that fear growing deep within her would surface and once unleashed – could never be re-contained. Ten years older, the demons of old fuel her, empower her and push her to be the very thing she once feared: A monster in her own right.

A dramatic action packed 12-part series in a sea of comedic web content, “Drawn By Pain” engages its audience by leading them through an episodic spiral into one woman’s search for salvation as her animated madness fights for her sanity in the real world.

Details

Cast: Jesse Cowell, Erica Langworthy, Marissa Parness, Elizabeth Plevy, Guy Rader
Blip.tv Channel: Drawn By Pain
Website: Drawn By Pain
Support the Show: Visit The Drawn By Pain Store

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Twitter Page Jeskid

Ratings

This is a series you have to see to believe. The way they blend live action with animation is absolutely stunning and my only qualm is I wish they had the time to do more of it. Also, the interplay between the main character’s younger and older self and the demons she faces down is the sort of thing you would expect out of a much higher budget production. In all, this is a brilliant piece of work. (Style 5)

Overall the story is fantastic but some episodes seemed to drift, this is especially apparent near the middle of the series when we start to question the protagonists sanity. While I understand what they were trying to accomplish, and they did a good job of doing so, if they had added more exposition it would have helped to flesh out the themes. (Pacing 3.5)

Storytelling 5

Polish 4

This is a complete story in every sense of the word, you’ll find yourself stuck to your seat from beginning to end. Why the 4 then? Well, it’s also one of the darkest web series I’ve seen to date. It deals with issues of abuse, sanity and identity that wil make it difficult to swallow for some more sensitive viewers. If you can get past this you are in for a ride, I couldn’t give a stronger recommendation if I tried (Watchability 4)

Novelty 5

Overall Rating: 4.41 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Sure the voice acting is uneven but with alien abductions, freedom fighters, robots and melodrama, this series has all the ear marks of a great space opera and it doesn’t disappoint.

What happens when a lone motorcyclist gets lost in the woody backroads of North Carolina at night? He gets abducted by aliens, of course!

Follow Stu Baker in the continuing series Star Quest as he begins an adventure in the vast blackness of space! Yes, there are ray guns and robots too!

Details

Cast: roguevirus, Ubernewbie, Act3scene24, yvedt, QueenOfHearts, Davidwww, Sisch, Gerald, armandoxthegreat, reptor7
Moviestorm Channel: Star Quest
Website: Hursto Presto
Support the Show: See More At Hursto Presto

Ratings

Style 3.5

Pacing 4

Even though alien invasion stories are classic Sci-Fi fare, you really see something this elaborate done as a web series. It was refreshing to watch it play out so well. Of course, there could always be a few more twists but the writing and setting were both solid, making this series a must see for Sci-Fi fans. (Storytelling 4)

The only problem I had was that the voice acting quality was uneven. It felt like the voices were recorded on a bunch of different mics. Some sound clear, some muffled, and others tinny. This really throws off the sense of immersion in places. Otherwise the camera work and animation are solid. (Polish 3.5)

It’s a Machinima Space Opera so expect a host of characters, laser fire and a lot of time spent developing characters. Even when the episodes cross the 10 minute barrier they move quickly enough to keep you engaged. They also manage to balance action sequences with slower paced segments of exposition. (Watchability 4)

Novelty 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Cafe Insomniac is a thinking man’s machinima. The visuals are well crafted but the real beauty of this story is trying to unravel what’s real and what’s a delusion.

Machinima is animated film-making within a real-time virtual 3-D environment. It uses the technology developed by computer gaming and transfers it to film-making.

Machinima has been around in a primitive form since the 1990’s, but it’s only been in the last year that the technology has existed to produce quality content.

Recently Warner Brother’s became the first film studio to release a machinima series – ‘Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series’.

Details

Creators: Hardy Capo
Vimeo Channel: Cafe Insomniac
Website: Callous Productions
Support the Show: Hire Callous Productions For Machinima

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Twitter Feed Hardy Capo

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 4

This has just about everything you could ask for out of a Machinima. The story is one twist after another, the camera work and animation is brilliantly done and the voice work is excellent. Not only that but each episode feels complete, which is the most common problem web series face, they are usually just under 10 minutes long and by the end you feel like the plot has actually moved somewhere. (Storytelling 4)

Machinima is pretty hit or miss. The trick is to make it feel like you’re not just watching a cleverly edited video game with voice overs. Cafe Insomnia does the job. The editing is crisp, the voices fit the action and the world manages to breath. We can only hope that as the series continues, some of the open questions are answered the the writing continues to be as good as the first three episodes. (Polish 4.5)

Watchability 4

Novelty 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: It’s quirky, clever and about sperm. Saying more than that would just ruin the experience. Do yourself a favor and watch an episode or two.

I always wanted to voice an animated show and use all the crazy voices in my head, so I created “It’s a Sperm’s World.”

Armed with Adobe After Effects and a boat load of Lynda.com training videos, I proceeded to learn how to animate (professional animators: your joke here) my show.

Originally, I tried to voice both Gary and Skippy. I got out my microphone and my multiple personalities and started recording. I listened back and low and behold… it was terrible. Something was missing. More than just my sanity.

I had always had great comedic rapport with my good friend, Shane Blades, and thought he would be an excellent addition to the show. With nothing better to do, he said, “Yes.” The rest is history.

Details

Cast: Jeff Lapensee, Shane Blades
YouTube Channel: It’s A Sperm’s World
Website: It’s A Sperm’s World
Support the Show: Make A Donation

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Twitter Feed: Feed
Facebook Page It’s A Sperm’s World

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 4

Storytelling 3.5

Polish 3.5

Watchability 4

It’s a show about…well, ok, before I start, when was the last time you saw an animated sitcom about a sperm named Skippy? Every other part of this show is so overshadowed by its concept that it’s not really worth talking about. It is funny. It is easy to watch episode to episode but the most important part by far is that it is about sperm. Give it a shot, if only because then you’ll be able to say you’ve seen everything the Internet has to offer. (Novelty 5)

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: While the voice acting is uneven, the story has the kind of energy you expect from much higher budget space operas. This is worth a watch of machinima and sci-fi fans alike.

Chronicles of Humanity is an original science fiction series that takes place in the 24th century. The story begins after a mining accident on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, with the colonists protesting against the Government’s unwillingness to give them better working conditions. And that’s only the beginning…

Details

Cast: Charlie Allen-Wall, Damien Valentine, Elizabeth Cameron, Felicia Day, Gabrielle Pugliese, Ingrid Moon, Kim Genly, Richard Grove
Vimeo Channel: Chronicles of Humanity
Website: Chronicles of Humanity
Support the Show: Watch Bathtub Productions Other Films

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Facebook Page Chronicles of Humanity

Ratings

They decided to go big with this one, taking a high concept like a space opera and doing it all using machinima. For all the minor flaws it has, it’s a stylistic feat. (Style 4.5)

Pacing 4

I can’t tell if my problem is with the script or with the voice acting. Actually I can, it’s with the voice acting. There are portions of the narrative that fall flat because it’s really clear that the lines are being read, which is a shame because overall it is a grand story concept. It’s hard to sync your acting with a character whose lips don’t even move, but compared to say, Red vs. Blue, there is a huge disconnect between what you’re seeing on the screen and the voices coming from the characters. (Storytelling 3.5)

Polish 4

Get past the pilot and you start to see a really interesting story begin to unravel. This is another one of those series where it helps to watch multiple episodes in a row, and if you do you’ll be treated to a top tier romp through space — rare for a web series. (Watchability 3.5)

Novelty 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.83 out of 5 stars

There is a risk you take when you make a film designed to “prove a point,” and that is that your audience will get lost somewhere inside of that point and lose track of the narrative. While Nothing is a cleverly made and well animated short, it loses itself in this trap.

It’s a story of a company that is trying to sell “nothing,” to do this it needs a marketing campaign so it hires Nobody, a designer who puts together a way to sell nothing to the public. After this setup the rest of the film is a play on these two set pieces that is hysterically funny in the beginning but loses its shine by the end.

Visually it’s really fun to watch and in general it stays on the mark, my biggest critique is that about 2:30 in you get it and you start to wish that the writer found a more interesting direction to take the idea. While it does succeed in panning rampant and senseless consumerism, it does so with a mega-phone and a sledgehammer.

If only for the style and creativity of the animation, I suggest giving this one a look.

Creator’s Description

A Company wants to sell »Nothing« on a large scale and hires Nobody, a renowned designer who creates the adequate advertising campaign and turns out to be an expert in the field of digital hypnosis… A sarcastic view on the advertising industry, ingeniously lived cliches and the contemporary brand hype.

Details

Creator: Ralf Bremer
Vimeo Channel: Nothing
Website: Ralf Bremer

Ratings

A great mix of animation and live action brings this world to life. (Style 4)

Pacing 3

It’s an acid tongued look at advertising and brand loyalty that stays on mark in most places. (Storytelling 3)

Polish 3.5

As well done as it is, the overall theme could get a little grating to some, it’s a position piece and as such you will enjoy it a lot more if you share Mr. Bremer’s position. (Watchability 3.5)

Novelty 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.41 out of 5 stars

It was hard writing this review because I can’t quite put a finger on why I like this film so much. The animation is stunning and has a kind of visual richness that is missing from many short animations that believe that technical flourishes can make up for good visual storytelling.

The music is also wonderful and it drives the story forward in a way that might have been impossible with dialogue.

While those are reasons for the good review, they aren’t why I like it so much.

When it comes down to it, there is just something sweet about this film. It’s a story of loneliness, friendship and hope told in less than ten minutes and with cartoon sensibilities. It’s like a bedtime story and I love it for the same reasons, it shows how magical and tenuous friendship can be.

It’s a story I wish was told this well more often.

Creator’s Description

Harmony is a young girl living on a cold and desolate Earth, alone and longing for friendship. While trying to tune into a station on her home radio one night, she picks up a melody that leads her to the moon.

Entropy is an emotional and dreamlike short that articulates feelings of loneliness, hope, and love.

Details

Creator: Dane Jacobs, Jeremy Hay
Youtube Channel: Rhubarb Zoo
Website: Entropy

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 3.5

Fantastic visual storytelling. (Storytelling 4)

This is an absolutely beautiful film, from the animation to the ending theme. (Polish 5)

Watchability 4

Novelty 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

ARK is a visually breath-taking look at life, disease and society. When I say breath-taking I mean that in every possible way, the detail and depth of the animation can almost make you miss the strength of the storytelling.

That’s what really strikes me though, the storytelling. Without a word of dialogue director Grzegorz Jonkajtys drags you into this world of desperation, disease and madness. Even though there is almost no action until the final act, you can feel the tension as the protagonist circles around his final decision.

In the world of web animations this is a masterpiece. In fact, any world where this would not be considered a masterpiece leaves much to be desired.

Creator’s Description

An unknown virus has destroyed almost the entire human population.

Oblivious to the true nature of the disease, the only remaining survivors escape to the sea. In great ships, they set off in search of uninhabited land. So begins the exodus, led by one man…

Details

Creator: Grzegorz Jonkajtys
Openfilm Channel: ARK
Website: Grzegorz Jonkajtys

Ratings

Remember when I said it was breath-taking? Yea. (Style 5)

Pacing 3.5

This is a cast study in strong visual storytelling. (Storytelling 5)

Polish 5

It’s very, very dark and it only gets darker as it enters the third act. If you are looking for hope and redemption, this is probably not your film. (Watchability 4)

Novelty 4

Overall Rating: 4.41 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: If you have the slightest inkling what Yu-Gi-Oh is then you are doing yourself a disservice by not watching this series.

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series (often abbreviated to Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged or simply YGOTAS) is a popular fan parody of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime as dubbed by 4Kids Entertainment. It is created by Martin Billany, better known by his screen name LittleKuriboh, who originally strived to update the series weekly, although this has not always been possible.[8] The series has become incredibly popular with the number of visits to the main site ranking over 30 million. The show’s increasing popularity has shown, with several new Abridged Series’ being created for other shows, following the precedent set by LittleKuriboh.

Each “episode” of the Abridged Series parodies the original Yu-Gi-Oh! equivalent and is typically four to six minutes per episode (though episode length has steadily increased with time). The series is made using clips from the original series while voicing most of the characters and placing in sound effects, music clips, and other references to popular culture. LittleKuriboh voices all of the Abridged Series characters with the exception of Rebecca Hawkins and various other bit characters, who are voiced by his wife Abigail (”Abi”), better known by her screen name Safty.

Details

Cast: Martin Billany
YouTube Channel: Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series
Website: Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series
Support the Show: Visit The Store

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Revver Page: YGOTAS

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 4.5

I’ve never seen a television parody this well executed. Every single episode manages to hit the mark, which is almost unheard of in the uneven world of web series. (Storytelling 5)

Polish 4

This series is geektastic, in fact, it is even more insidery than that it is anime geektastic. If you don’t care enough about anime to sit around laughing at it for a while then you probably won’t be able to sit through more than a few episodes of this. However, if you do this is an absolute masterpiece and you should probably be watching this right now. (Watchability 4.5)

Novelty 4

Overall Rating: 4.33 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: For the closet non-conformist in all of us, Jonathan’s acerbic, ranting squirrel is worth a viewing or ten.

Neurotically Yours is a webtoon created by Jonathan Ian Mathers, depicting a squirrel named Foamy, who is the neurotic pet of a gothic girl named Germaine (voiced by Dawn Bennett). Episodes are mainly located on the Ill Will Press homepage, in addition to numerous external websites.

To date, there are 200 official episodes of Neurotically Yours. There are also a number of fan-produced episodes circulated among various fansites on the Internet. There are also 38 topical rants, which are audio-based rants in which Foamy is talking about a particular topic

Details

Cast: Jonathan Mathers, Dawn Bennett
YouTube Channel: Neurotically Yours
Website: Ill Will Press
Support the Show: Buy DVDs, T-Shirts and More

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RSS Feed: Feed
Facebook Fan Page: Neurotically Yours

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 3.5

Jonathan has perfected his format over the years. The meta-story is solid and each episode packs a pretty compelling arc. Even the rants, which always run to risk of ambling off into oblivion reign themselves in enough to be punchy and not cloying. (Storytelling 4.5)

Polish 3.5

You’ll know very quickly whether you love or hate Neurotically Yours. It’s dark, it’s opinionated and it can quickly grate on the more sensitive among us. If that’s your thing, you’ll love it. If you are easily bored by rants, you might want to skip this one. (Watchability 3.5)

I can guarantee you have never seen anything quite like this on the Interwebs. (Novelty 3.5)

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: I feel like this is a great series begging for longer episodes.

Emergency 411 is a short series of animations put together by Tim Heiderich. He guides us through surviving all of life’s problems whether it’s having a baby or being trapped in the cold embrace of outer space.

I enjoyed every second of these shorts, the only problem I had was that there were so few seconds to enjoy. I appreciate the fact that this is the web and things need to be snappy, but a lot of these concepts were incredibly cool and having an extra 30 seconds might have given Tim more time to flesh things out.

Then again, there is a rule to comedy that you should always leave them wanting more. In this case, I think the judge is still out.

Details

Creator: Tim Heiderich
Openfilm Channel: Emergency 411
Website: Tim Toon
Support the Show: See Tim’s Projects At Weak Nights

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RSS Feed: Feed
YouTube Feed: Weak Nights

Ratings

Style 4

I only wish these were longer. There are a lot of really good ideas here but after you cut out the intro and the credits some of them clock in at under 30 seconds. This is one of those times where another minute of exposition could have really helped. (Pacing 2.5)

Storytelling 3.5

I love the animation style, it reminds me a little of 1950s commercial parody. Everything about the way this is arranged is well done. (Polish 4)

The episode end too abruptly at times, just as you’re getting into the joke the credits start to roll. The “how to’s” themselves are all great concepts though, so I found myself forgiving the length over and over again. (Watchability 3)

Novelty 3

Overall Rating: 3.33 out of 5 stars

This is the most fun you’ll ever have with mail delivery. Not only is the animation extremely well realized but there is a story here that is actually worth watching. The big problem with a lot of animated shorts is that they turn into glorified tech demos, in this case Asterokid and Jon have given us a living, breathing and entertaining look at what mail delivery might look like in space.

Creator’s Description

Galactic Mail is a short film I made in collaboration with my fellow friend Jonathan Vuillemin aka Motraboy. It was produced by The Mill which basically gave us some time to create it. We spent around four months working on it together from storyboards to compositing. Because of the time we had to complete the piece, we went for a different approach than Sigg Jones. On one hand, we had to make things simple and turn it at our advantage. On the other hand, I was keen to experiment a lot of things I had thought about using the 3D media.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Details

Creators: Asterokid, Jonathan Vuillemin
Vimeo Channel: Galactic Mail
Website: Asterokid

Ratings

Style 4.5

It’s a fun, kinetic concept piece. (Pacing 3.5)

Storytelling 3.5

The animation is crisp, detailed and the musical score drives the action forward. (Polish 4)

Watchability 4

Novelty 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Experimental filmmaking always walks the fine line between being interesting and being unwatchable. Muzorama does a good job of skirting that line.

It was put together by Elsa Brehin, Raphaël Calamote, Mauro Carraro, Maxime Cazaux, Emilien Davaux, Laurent Monneron, and Axel Tillement in 3D Studio Max and it was inspired by French illustrator Muzo.

It’s weird, very weird. If you don’t go in expecting that you aren’t going to like it. There are people eating people, scenes cut within other scenes, cut between decapitated winking heads. There are melting faces and clones, giant women and dozens of other rich, creepy images. It’s all very surreal but unlike other animations of its class, it makes a certain amount of sense.

If you can get your head around the films logic it’s worth giving it a look, even if you can’t, at 3:12 it’s worth watching if only to tell all of your friends how strange it is.

Details

Creators: Elsa Brehin, Raphaël Calamote, Mauro Carraro, Maxime Cazaux, Emilien Davaux, Laurent Monneron, and Axel Tillement
Vimeo Channel: Muzorama
Created In: 3D Studio Max

Ratings

This film is stylish to a fault. (Style 4.5)

There is no clear story arc so it’s hard to really plot pacing. (Pacing 2.5)

Storytelling 2.5

For a project put together in 6 weeks it’s amazingly well done (Polish 3)

Watchability 2

It is, by definition, a very “art house” film and it uses many familiar tropes from the genre. (Novelty 3.5)

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Heui Won Jeong and Justin Murphy give us an incredibly stylish “eco-animation” in JumpTrumpRumpBump. They combined rich, vibrant illustrations with enough atmosphere to avoid making you feel like you’re sitting through a flipbook.

The story is slow, very slow in fact. If you look at the comments on the Vimeo page you’ll see that this was deliberate but for some people it might be off-putting. The story follows a little girl and her family who are hiding a group of animals who for whatever reason are convicts. I think they might have something against Koala’s playing Jazz. They manage to put the police of the scent using what is possibly the greatest distraction in recent animation history (start the video at 3:15 to see) and eventually the little girl finds herself in the forest laying down some tasty tunes with her woodland friends.

The creators seemed to be trying to draw a parallel between the development of natural habitats and the cultural losses we accept when we do so, however, considering it is almost 8 minutes long (7:54) it is just a little difficult to parse exactly what they were going for.

Overall this is an absolutely gorgeous piece of animation that is fun to watch, even though 8 minutes is an eternity in Internet time you’ll find yourself wishing there were more. While I do wish the story was a little tighter, they manage to get across their basic premise on the importance of conservation.

If you like animals, jazz or animation take some time to look at this.

Details

Creators: Heui Won Jeong, Justin Murphy
Vimeo Channel: JumpTrumpRumpBump
Image Gallery: Flickr

Ratings

Style 4

Pacing 3

You quickly get the message but you do feel like you’re ‘missing something’ (Storytelling 3)

Polish 5

About 50% of you will find it a little too long (Watchability 3.5)

It has a really unique visual style (Novelty 4.5)

Overall Rating: 3.33 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: I have been following these guys since their first series College University (which was great) and I am convinced that there aren’t more than a handful of people who can stitch pop culture together into a more comfortable parka of comedy.

This new original series will follow the adventures of video game characters trapped in the futuristic online cyberspace also known as the Internet. They will fight their way out by combating classic video game characters, as well as the eternal standards. Will they escape or rot forever in the infernal void that is the internet?

Details

Cast: Mike Parker, Dave Patriquin, Mason Yakubowich
YouTube Channel: Player Haters
Website: Player Haters
Support the Show: Buy The College University DVD

More Shows From Them

The Game Show: The Game Show
College University: College University

Ratings

Style 3

It’s a monster of the week premise so it moves pretty quickly. (Pacing 4)

While I liked College University better, this is a solid story that mixes video game and pop culture references without becoming too “insidery” (Storytelling 3.5)

Polish 3.5

Watchability 3.5

In one of the comments someone said that the show reminded them of Family Guy. In a lot of ways, they’re right. Mike Parker is really good at establishing plot through pop culture, and structures the show to take advantage of that fact. After years of Adult Swim and Family Guy you might find you have become a little immune to their charms. (Novelty 3.5)

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars