cct205_in_class_exercise_3

For this week’s (Jan. 27, 2012) exercise I chose to discuss:


 * **__ Symphony: seeing the big picture (…) and being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole __**

A perfect example of symphony would be in the making of any sort of video. Whether it be live-action or a cartoon, they essentially have a similar process in creation. I’ll focus on the creation of an online cartoon because it’s the easiest and simplest example to find online. I’ll use this point to mention that not everyone uses the same practices that I’ll describe, and many artists come to a similar end by different means. Most online cartoons are made via Adobe’s Flash program. All the elements used in the creations are disparate. First, we have the background objects that are animate or inanimate, some of which are drawn within Flash or imported from elsewhere. Then there are foreground objects which are the objects of interest (characters, items, etc.) and are usually more heavily animated than anything else. The animation of the separate objects would be the next major step in the creation of the video. Then, the soundtrack(s) and sound effects are imported in to Flash to be synchronized with the animation. Often the animations need to be further altered to fit into the timing of the audio files and vice versa for perfect harmony. To turn such a video into an interactive game, interactive elements can also be added to the file for users to be able to mess with. The order in which any of these elements are added and modified can be different, but the final result will be the same.

Finally, the creation can be exported as one of many options of formats and posted for everyone’s pleasure! The users might never know exactly how or in what order the symphony in such a creation was put together (and really, they don’t even consider such things) because they’re only able to see the finalized, big picture.

Here’s a link to a good example of a flash cartoon tutorial on youtube:

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