Animation and Video Life

Emily Moxley announces Shorts Series at #MadeOnYouTube 2026 O ver the last few months, as a considerable number of YouTube Story Time Animator channels have fallen prey to YouTube's somewhat aggressive AI algorithm, demonetizing, content watchdog, something new has been announced that independent and solo animators should pay attention to.  At the recent #MadeOnYouTube 2026 event, where a host of new features for the platform were announced, one that really caught my attention was 'Shorts Series', which follows in the wake of another new feature, 'YouTube Shows'. Watch the announcement in the video below. Shorts Series, Ask YouTube, & Creator Protection - Made On YouTube YouTube itself has become the number one streaming platform in the world and is increasingly watched on large screens in people's living rooms. As such YouTube is pivoting more and more to features that improve the large screen experience. Short form, serialized dramas have become a thing o...

Voice Changer by AVSoft is real time voice manipulation software that can be used for a wide range of purposes including (according to their website); Voice-over and voice dubbing for audio/video clips, presentations, narrations, voice messages, voice mails, E-greeting cards, broadcasting, etc.; mimic the voice of any person, create animal sounds, change/replace/remove voices in songs, videos,etc. I bought it for the specific purpose of changing my own voice, to extend my vocal range, for voicing characters in my own animations. I was fortunate enough to get this software at a significant discount that made it difficult to refuse, given that I'd never tried it, or even heard of it before. I'm not sure if I would have bought it at the full price given that much of what it can do (for my needs) can also be done with the freeware audio program, Audacity . AV Voice Changer Interface. Voice Changer is relatively easy to install and set up. Once installed simply ...

USA Presidential election campaign speeches are so much more interesting and inspiring than the election campaign speeches given by Australian politicians. Personalities play a big part in deciding US elections (as does the Supreme Court for the cynical among you). I enjoy listening to campaign speeches in the US elections and Mitt Romney's speech at the 2012 Republican convention was a doozie. The video of his entire speech is embeded below but it was his closing comments from about 30 minutes into the speech onward that really caught my attention. Mitt talks about the threat in Iran and notes that Obama's diplomatic talks with Iran have achieved nothing. He reinforces the idea of a United America and highlights the many soldiers that have died fighting for the values and freedoms that America enjoys. Which got a big cheer. I wonder if anyone who'd actually lost someone in the Afghanistan or Iraq conflicts were cheering? Do those people feel any more free now for ...

In late January of 2012 I was looking around for ideas to create an epic animated music video on GoAnimate that told a story of a battle against the odds. Inspiration... This came about as a result of re-viewing, yet again,  one of my favorite GoAnimations of all time created by GoAnimator,  Tripfold , called The Jet Set Concussion (The Blueberry Fiz Contention 2). I've embeded it below. It still stands up as a great GoAnimation even now. The Jet Set Concussion by Tripfold on GoAnimate Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate. It's an old animation (published in October of 2009) that tells a love story of our hero of sorts in the face of aliens hell bent on destroying the world. I like it because of how it tells the story with no dialogue. How it uses music to set the pace of the action and that it features plenty of detail and subtle animation techniques, not really seen on GoAnimate at the time (such as paralax movement of objects to give a feeling o...

The Last Complaint... March 12, 2012 is the day Jim Benton's Happy Bunny Theme license expired on GoAnimate. Before it did I wanted to release just one more episode of this topical and much enjoyed series. This was the result, completed in just five days. (I usually spend at least a couple of weeks on these). The Final Complaint - GoA Complaints Dept. by etourist on GoAnimate Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate. Over the years my series The GoAnimate Complaints Department has become synonymous with the Happy Bunny theme for many people on GoAnimate. Here's something I wrote in the comments on the video... The Complaints Dept. is one of GoAnimate's longest running series, with the first one minute episode appearing about two and a half years ago. Even though there's only 10 episodes it's continued to be popular and has been one of the most imitated series from my own catalogue. All but one uses speech balloons to tell the jokes. Including thi...

Between December 2010 and March 2011 GoAnimate ran their Bring on the Noise contest in partnership with the Tribe of Noise indie music sharing web site. Animators could choose from a selection of about 15 songs and make an animated music video for their favorite. You could enter as many times as you like. I managed to create two entries, the second of which you can see at the bottom of my post about Episode 1, Part 3 of Bat Storm: Financial Crisis which didn't get the required number of Facebook Likes to be considered a valid entry in the competition. My first entry, below, not only made the cut it was the first runner up in the competition (effectively second place). As well it was the most viewed and the most recommended of all entries by the close of the competition. Re-animatrix: 'Afghan Sands' by Stoneye by etourist on GoAnimate Obviously my video is inspired by the closing battle in The Matrix: Revolutions but it wasn't the music that prompted me t...

I think the fact that Captain Kirk had a bit of a reputation of being successful with the ladies was what prompted me to use the Star Trek theme on this animated music video for Tone Loc's song, Funky Cold Medina . Although I'm a huge fan of the song when it was released back in 1989 I uploaded it to GoAnimate intending to use it as a backing song to my GoAnimate Complaints Department Plus animation. However it just didn't seem to fit. In December of 2010 I decided it would be a great song to help feature Some of GoAnimate's new Musical Action packs including 'Lead Singer', 'Black Guitar' and 'Drummer' as well as the not so musical action pack, 'Romantic Male'. Those of you with a musical ear should listen out for all the different samples Tone used to create this awesome track. Funky Cold Medina was made at a time when mix artists were ripping samples from all kinds of songs without a care in the world for copying rights. One of t...

Street Fighter's M. Bison is a mysterious boss and head of the crime syndicate and military organization Shadaloo. He is responsible for the murder of Chun Li's father and Guile's friend Charlie. Making him the ideal choice to train wanna-be evil geniuses from the GoAnimate cast of characters. Of course, having spent 400 GoBucks (US$4.00) just to obtain Bison for my latest GoAnimate Complaints Department installment, was also a factor in making sure I got my monies worth from the character. Evil Genius Training Camp by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! It was GoAnimate member Coady who planted the seed for this concept in an unrelated GoAnimate forum discussion called Great Tactics for getting fans although I suspect his comment "TET, do I feel an evil genius video coming back?" was referring to my original Evil Genius series for getting views. I remember a few years back reading a list of things an Evil Overlord sho...

Here, There, & Everywhere by Mojochi Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Thought I'd feature this very beautiful music video created by GoAnimator, Mojochi , because I really love the way each of the fairly complex background sets are constructed behind the central character and star, Match boy. I tried this technique a little myself many, many months ago in my GoAnimate Better Series featuring Match Boy & Girl demonstrating Speech Balloons but no where near the level of Mojochi's work. It really does show that almost anything is possible with GoAnimate's Animation Studio Editor.

The continuing story of my Men In Black parody staring Barack Obama and AKON . If you have yet to see the first episode , it's not essential but does set up how Barack happens to be a MIB agent. I'd recommend you take a look. In this second episode Barack learns the truth about the former President and Vice President and attempts to play a practical joke that goes wrong. MIB - Part 2 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Paul Dini's, Rashy , once again makes an appearance in one of my animations as the boss of everything (well almost). After being foiled by Underdog in The Copier , Rashy continues his scheme to graduate from being the boss of a corporation to world and universe domination! When I started this series I had no idea Rashy would make an appearance but that's just the way I work. I start with an idea and see where it takes me rather than scripting the whole thing from beginning to end. As soon as I wrote Cheney saying "Th...

GoAnimate had an informal competition on their message board forum to guess the next license they'd release on their site. Willie Nelson was definitely not on anyone's radar. Not even close. If there was any doubt that GoAnimate is not just a 'kids' site then the recently launched Willie Nelson theme should lay that to rest. The only way Willie could possibly be known by kids in the 10-17 year old bracket is if they've seen the some-what below average Dukes of Hazard movie from 2005 in which Willie appeared as a weed smoking Uncle Jesse. Since this theme has nothing to do with the Dukes of Hazard movie and everything to do with Willie Nelson, his music and his touring show, then only die hard country music fans and Willie's own fan base are going to be really excited by Willie's appearance on GoAnimate. There aren't too many of them in the 10-17 year old age bracket. To try and make Willie a bit more appealing to the younger market there is a Super Wi...

I'm not an AKON fan. I need to say that right up front however when AKON's theme arrived at GoAnimate it was an opportunity to have a go at making a music video. My video tries to follow the lyrics of the song to some degree and it also includes some Zoom and Panning experiments that are more complex to create than they appear. Right Now (Na Na Na) - Akon Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! It's not the full song because the theme only includes samples of AKON's music. As well it doesn't permit members to upload their own sounds or music so I had to work with what I was given. Since I made this the AKON theme has been extended with more characters, backgrounds and props which I would have used had they been available. I'm not that interested in creating more AKON animations but the AKON GoAnimat character has a touch of Will Smith in it's look so you may see him in a future movie parody or two.