As mentioned in a previous post, I have to make a series of ~15 second animations using Flash, working on the same scale some of the original animators worked at when they were painting/ marking 22mm X 16mm film. To accompany the animations we had to make some music using the loops on GarageBand.
The process started with the music, choosing the right loops to go together but will also be good to animate to. I started by looking at the synth sounds, as they were rather distinct and a lot of the stood out with a mixture of short, quick sounds and faded ones. This would give some variety to the animations with the shapes and whatnot. The music was then imported into Flash so I could start drawing frames to match the music. My first attempt was initially an exploration of different patters I could do in time with the music, working out what worked and what didn’t. I then went onto make my second animation and third animation (WARNING: Flashing and whatnot) which I felt fit much more in time with the music and overall were a big improvement. With these, I drew the whole frame each time, redrawing elements that were used in other frames to give a more dynamic feel to the animation, rather than having any static shapes. This animation style really appealed to me as it stood out as being more stylised and interesting to watch.
From here I got a bit distracted by the allure of the banjo loops on GarageBand and ended up making this, which I feel could’ve looked great if I was better at drawing banjos. This animation went with a static image in each frame rather than redrawing it like I had done before. I felt this made it seem a lot more flat which in a sense, could be good as it makes the movement of the strings stand out a lot more, but it make the animation as a whole seem dull and uninteresting, despite the delightful music.
I also animated to an excerpt from a song (Trinidad James – All Gold Everything (MAKJ Remix)) which you can see here. This one was my personal favourite, as the flashing shapes and patterns really complimented the style of music. Using an actual piece of music was a lot more fulfilling for me to animate to as it made it seem like a more finished piece, rather than just flashing lines to some simple music. Once again I went for drawing out each frame every time which made the lettering more dynamic and fun, which really complimented the song. for the ‘drop’ in the song, the flashing shapes had a dynamic sense of craziness and uncontrollability which represented the music very well.
While they were relatively fun to make, this abstract animation didn’t appeal to me all that much. Maybe it was a combination of the miniature scale were were working on or just the stigma attached to Flash I’m not sure. If I were to do more work in flash, I would defiantly work at a larger size and do some more detailed/intricate animating.
Kurt Stubbings 