What could be more American than cowboys and astronauts? Fightin’ in downtown Las Vegas, of course! Welcome to MK12’s animated short History of America, in which the hero icons of Westerns and outer space are pitted against each other in a stylish reinterpretation of the Wild West, mixed with fun social and gender issues.

MK12 is a design and filmmaking collective based in Kansas City, Mo. that has earned acclaim in both commercial and artistic arenas. Founded in 2000 by art school refugees Jed Carter, Tim Fisher, Matt Fraction, and Ben Radatz, the collective has made many works in design, commercials, and short films. History of America was one of 16 works chosen by New York Magazine as the best online content of 2007.

Answering as a collective, MK12 explained the story behind the story: “When we first came up with the idea, America wasn’t very popular, so we wanted to make a piece with a distinct American tack, but not with any kind of propagandist slant; we just wanted to celebrate those things which were stereotypically American: cowboys and astronauts, Las Vegas, the Civil War, Manifest Destiny, etc.”

But why Las Vegas over other iconic American cities like Washington D.C. or New York City?

“We wanted a location that really exemplified America, and Las Vegas seemed perfect, not only because of its über-capitalist implications but also because of its wild-west, play-to-win spirit. We stayed out of DC because we didn’t want a modern political angle to the film, and that would have inevitably bled through had we chosen to do so.”

In the collective’s watercolored version of Las Vegas, animation looks to be about 50 percent of the total makeup of the film. Real actors worked in costume in front of green screens, and some were even on ropes and pulleys flying around. MK12 has used similar processing and manipulating live action footage in commercials and in a recent music video for Hot Hot Heat, but the style was amped up even more for History.

And, by the way: When one needs a spacesuit, where does one go?

“One could A) buy one online from a costume shop for $20, and it’ll look exactly like you bought it online for $20,” said MK12. “Or, B) find yourself a costume designer and have one made from scratch. Fortunately, we had a friend who knew just such a person, so it wasn’t quite the headache we expected it to be.”

Working as a collective must make for an effective division of labor, with lots of committed folks at the ready. But how do such individualistic jobs as director, screenwriter, and producer work out?

“Our process for making a film is fundamentally the same as a large-scale production,” they said. “The main difference is that there’s much more cross-pollination with everyone’s role in the process. Of course there are tasks that need to be managed by an individual—i.e., the initial framework of the story or a rough cut. But beyond that we keep the structure very loose and allow everyone to contribute [and] critique all aspects of production. On a bigger film with a temporary crew, this would probably be disastrous, but over years of working together we now share a collective brain, and that usually works in our favor.”