Doug Bresler, otherwise known to many who have recently surfed the Internet as Doog of doogtoons.com, is and always has been a storyteller.  Bresler’s first storytelling experience took place when he was a dutiful thirteen-year old boy, helping his older sister use a video camera for her high school project.  With some encouragement from his Grandfather, for whom he has the utmost respect, Bresler began to pursue his dreams of creating, storytelling, and making movies. 

As a film and media studies major at UCSB, Bresler’s first film experience was actually in front of the camera.  While at UCSB Bresler auditioned for an independent feature, Mysterious Circumstances, in which he played the leading role.  Bresler describes his comically racially confused character as “a white guy who thought he was black.”  From this production experience Bresler learned quite a bit about “the real experience of making a movie.”  Bresler then went on to being the production manager of a 106 project, the Hypnotist Show, and he was involved with a 107 project, Love a la Carte.  Bresler loved the time he spent at UCSB.  He has fond memories of working with film and media studies professor, Dana Driskel and the undergraduate academic advisor, Joe Palladino.  Bresler’s only qualm with UCSB was its paradise-like atmosphere and tempting outdoors that at times made getting projects off the ground difficult.

But Bresler did not let UCSB’s natural splendor get in his way.  Bresler got involved with making cartoons because, “it was a way I could do everything myself.”  All by himself, Bresler created his cartoon series Nick and Haig from his house on el Sueno in Isla Vista.  Bresler recorded and interviewed his roommates, Nick and Haig, with probing questions about life, school, and other various entertaining topics.  Bresler then set out to learn Flash, which he did andthe final animated product of Nick and Haig got an overwhelmingly positive response from his friends and peers.   The cartoon went on to premiere at the Santa Barbara Digital Video Festival where it was well received.

After graduating from UCSB Bresler moved back to his hometown, Los Angeles. Instead of opting for graduate studies he began to support himself as a graphic designer.  Bresler also worked for Apple computers as a “Mac Genius” until he got involved and was successful enough with video podcasting that he no longer needed a day job. (**A podcast is a media file that is distributed via Internet in a variety of ways i.e. portable media players, computers, and or syndication feeds).  His podcast, Doogtoons, got featured and made the top one hundred on itunes podcast.  Bresler now has a large and rapidly growing audience on the World Wide Web, and companies and individuals pay him to advertise their products and services on his website.

Bresler, like many people today, has managed to use the Internet to jumpstart his career.  “Everything I have is online.  The net is an amazing tool.  I create entertainment on an online platform.”  Bresler’s work is very accessible.  In addition to his own website, Bresler’s work has been featured on Yahoo Picks, and he also has a couple of Myspace accounts for people to peruse and enjoy his creations. 

Bresler’s current and very exciting project that he is working on is a collaboration with his hero, Weird Al Yankovic.  The pair got together when Bresler sent Weird Al an email about appearing on his show, Doogtoons.   Weird Al’ Yankovic’s interview with Bresler can be seen on his website, http://www.doogtoons.com/ep-wa1.php.  This interview led to Bresler’s animating Weird Al’s song, “Trapped in the Drive-Thru” (a parody of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”).  Bresler describes this eleven-minute music video as a “super music video.”  The video is premiering on the front of myspace.com on March 19th 2007.  Bresler, as well as his large online fan base, is very excited.

Doug Bresler is successful because he has worked very hard.  Also, he was creative and lucky enough to find a way to get his voice out there, which is ultimately how he launched his own career.  Bresler finds his work as a storytellervery fulfilling, and it definitely keeps him busy, but he has set more goals for himself such as producing and directing films.  Bresler believes that the key to success within the industry is “working you’re ass off, having the mentality that it is not going to be easy,” and “jumping in and getting yourself out there,” which he has definitely done.   
    
The video is world premiering on the front of Myspace.com on March 19th, so be prepared!

Zoe Mccarthy

Diggin' the Doogtoons
By Mollie Vandor, March 15, 2007 , Santa Barbara Independant

UCSB Grad/Online Cartoonist Doug Bresler Makes Friends with the Internet

by Mollie Vandor

From file sharing to sharing it all on YouTube, the Internet is entirely reshaping modern media. Whether you love it, hate it, or just plain don’t know how to use it, it’s still changing the way everything from pop music to porn movies are created, distributed, and exhibited. Entire blockbusters are now available at the click of a legally ambiguous button, bands rise and fall based on their MySpace pages, and political campaigns kick off with snazzy Web sites. Living so close to L.A., it’s hard not to hear about the havoc the digital media revolution is wreaking on the salaries of studio execs, gaffers, and grips alike, not to mention the regular news stories about some poor teenager who got arrested because his music collection came straight from LimeWire and not the neighborhood record store.

But the digital media revolution has a happy face, too. For UCSB graduate Doug Bresler, it’s the faces of Weird Al Yankovic, Tommy Chong, and the masters of martial arts behind the popular Ask a Ninja podcast, to name a few. That’s because Bresler has chosen to embrace the online either as a place to distribute his animated short films featuring the aforementioned characters, among other subjects, on his Web site doogtoons.com.

After spending his college years studying film in sunny Santa Barbara, Bresler found himself frustrated with the film department’s focus on criticism and analysis, and the fact that the laidback lifestyle of UCSB was not necessarily conducive to the actual making of movies.

“I was in an independent film and I shot some short stuff,” Bresler said. “But I wanted to do something bigger, and every time I tried to get people involved, when it didn’t involve money or class, it was almost impossible, because the lifestyle in Santa Barbara is so laidback. … And it’s a small town, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But, it was tough for me because I really wanted to make a movie.” So, after college, Bresler followed the path of many a film major before him, and headed to the City of Angels to make movies of his very own — only to find flakiness in the face of funding shortages isn’t an affliction unique to UCSB’s film scholars.

“I wanted to do a project, and I was getting really frustrated with trying to get things going and everyone flaking out,” Bresler said. “So I figured out the easiest way to do your own film is to do it animated so you don’t have to secure locations or get a lighting kit or get a sound guy. I looked into what it would take to make a cartoon, and I found Flash [a Web site animation program].” He bought a library of how-to books, learned the program, and was ready to make movies by himself. Then came the question of distribution, so he chose the Internet, for better or for worse.

“The advantage [of the Internet] is that your audience is unlimited, which means as long as somebody can get access to a computer they can access your work,” Bresler said. “The disadvantage is that nobody, including myself, has figured out how to make a lot of money off it because it’s all free.”

Despite that puzzle, Bresler is still getting by on content licensing, freelance animation work, and various other deals — some of which have stemmed from people seeing the Web site. He said the site has reached a much wider audience than he expected it to, receiving between about four and six million hits per month. Unlike products produced in the major movie studios, Bresler’s work benefits from a more inexpensive marketing campaign.

“It’s mostly spread by word-of-mouth,” Bresler said. “That’s the most powerful form of marketing. I probably invested like $500 and we get about 15,000 visitors a day.”

A few have been critical of the cartoons’ numerous swear words, but Bresler explained, “Whenever I’m making these cartoons, it’s not my intention to offend people. It’s just the way people talk and I always wanted to keep it true to the way it really is.”

Ultimately, Bresler said, making short movies for an online audience is not that much different from the theatrical filmmaking skills he was taught at UCSB. According to Bresler, the Internet is the proverbial new frontier for today’s television and film audiences — whether they love it, hate it, or just plain don’t know how to use it.

“I think that online entertainment, that’s the future,” Bresler said. “Everything is going to transform. Television is going to transform and kind of merge with the Internet. They haven’t figured out how to do this yet — it’s just too soon. But, more and more people are getting online everyday, and learning about the Internet. … When they get to the point where the Internet is as easy to access as televisions, the Internet is going to be dominant.”

To see Doug Bresler’s cartoons, go to doogtoons.com.