I missed the July 12 deadline for the DNC/John Kerry ad contest. I really thought I had a chance to win seriously annoy them. The problems, and there were many, began with the fact that I did not have a copy of Flash - or anything else to create an animation with. Multiply that by the fact that I have never used Flash or any other software for the creation of an animation and you'll have some sense of what I was up against.

When I finally got my hands on a copy of Flash, it didn't come with a manual. The "help" that came with it would probably have provided a good review for someone with some idea of what they were doing in the first place. I found a couple of good sites that provided much better information. I am amazed at what a good idea it would have been to bookmark them. I built a few things the hard way and then rebuilt them when I found out how to make the tweening thing work. I also constructed the entire thing wrong, I think. I built each scene in it's own Flash Scene. The problem came when I wanted to put some music behind the whole thing. The only thing I could figure out to do was to copy each scene into a layer folder in one scene, then ad the music to that. I'm sure there is an easier way.

And about the music, I ordered a copy of Apple's Garage Band music composing software but I don't have it yet. And even when I get it, I'll have no idea what I'm doing. So I went through my list of MP3s and found something that seem potentially campaigny. The edit is a little rough.

On the whole its very rough. Very crude. And I am delighted with every frame of it for the mere fact of existence.

Special thanks go to fellow Munivian Nick Queen of Patriot Paradox who helped me to get it online when it turned out to be too large for MT to upload.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 08:51 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment