Harold Moss and Tammy Walters, partners in New York-based multimedia design and animation studio FlickerLab, have launched MOSS (www.thinkmoss.net), a brand initiative that will focus exclusively on producing media across all platforms fostering environmental, social, and political awareness and change. MOSS is housed in FlickerLab’s Manhattan headquarters.
For nearly a decade, FlickerLab has concentrated on animation and storytelling for film, television, commercials, and the web. Along the way, the studio has gravitated toward environmentally and socially relevant projects. Among these were: an animated campaign for the American Heart Association featuring the Bad Fats Brothers and The Better Fats Sisters; a viral short, How Pregnancy Happens, for Planned Parenthood; anti-smoking campaigns for the American Legacy Foundation and Comedy Central; work for Michael Moore Productions (A Brief History of the USA, in the Academy Award-winning, Bowling for Columbine, and graphic design and effects for Moore’s Fahrenheit 911); a range of ads for Green Peace and MoveOnPac.org; co-creating and producing the web series This Modern World (which satirized political inequities, corruption, and environmental destruction); and Trouble The Waters (consulting Producer and graphics for this 2008 Sundance and Full Frame Festival Grand Jury Prize winning Katrina documentary).
“Launching MOSS allows us to more single mindedly pursue these kinds of projects while deepening and extending our commitment to this kind of work,” explained Moss who is creative director of MOSS. “Einstein once said something that gets to the heart of our project: ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.’
“MOSS is our way to help develop and support those new kinds of thinking to surmount the critical challenges we face today as a planet,” he continued. “We are storytellers and are using those skills to inform, provoke thought and discussion, and galvanize people into concrete action around issues of the environment, poverty, peace, and social justice.”
Executive producer Walters added, “MOSS is fulfilling our mission through a broad range of projects including advertising campaigns for public service and non-governmental organizations working for social progress, original television series and films, and the creation of new fair-trade/green brands. Our first two series are currently being shopped to the TV networks.”
MOSS recently wrapped a one-minute animated short film,Dogsharks:Climate Change, that went online on Earth Day (4/22). The piece, which addresses global warming, was created by MOSS in conjuction with Robert Wurzburg, creator of the Dogsharks brand. In the short, a Dogshark demonstrates how easy it is to substitute an energy-saving compact fluorescent for a standard incandescent bulb. The Dogshark’s performance sparks wild applause and bouquets of flowers from an audience encouraged to act now.
MOSS is offering creative services to develop campaigns for important public service ideas; to develop brands that have an environmental message but are also proactive in rethinking the way things are made; and, in general, to be a change agent.
Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning TikTok If It’s Not Sold By Chinese Parent Company ByteDance
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Sunday unless it's sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States. A sale does not appear imminent and, although experts have said the app will not disappear from existing users' phones once the law takes effect on Jan. 19, new users won't be able to download it and updates won't be available. That will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings. The decision came against the backdrop of unusual political agitation by President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won't enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office. Trump, mindful of TikTok's popularity, and his own 14.7 million followers on the app, finds himself on the opposite side of the argument from prominent Senate Republicans who fault TikTok's Chinese owner for not finding a buyer before now. Trump said in a Truth Social post shortly before the decision was issued that TikTok was among the topics in his conversation Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. It's unclear what options are open to Trump once he is sworn in as president on Monday. The law allowed for a 90-day pause in the restrictions on the app if there had been progress toward a sale before it took effect. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the law at the Supreme Court for the Democratic Biden administration, told the justices last week that it's uncertain whether the prospect of a sale once the law is in effect could... Read More