Deenamic - You are probably correct about the Rushin' actor, the director told me he was an old friend who had moved to ____? (California?) to be in the soap opera. He flew back for the weekend contest, so the acting level is pretty high. I never watched Reading Rainbow, but yes, I use stills in the animation - probably more than I should but 48 hours is pretty short. The two desert shots at the beginning of "Blown Away" were done in Vue, a very good landscape program, and the moving dust added with Particle Illusion, a 2D effects program that can overlay any image or video. Similar for the scifi cityscape and the rising steam. The nice thing about the contest is you can say, "You liked it? Great!" Or, "You didn't like it? Well, we only had two days ..."