Project: Character Reference Sheets

As part of my media homework, I was to make reference sheets for the characters in my animation and here they are!

Research For Project: The Basics Of Flash

Yesterday, I got some books from the library and did som more research, about half an hour this time:

The basics of Flash

The basic tools in Flash consist of things from basic drawing tools such as the pencil and ink to greater tools such as layers and motion tweens.

The basic drawing tools are just like any other drawing program; the pencil and paintbrush can be used to draw onto the Flash canvas whilst the paint bucket can be used to flood colours and the eraser to erase mistakes. More complex tools are introduced such as the pen tool which allows you to create smooth lines that contain anchor points which can make a line curved and options to just outline or flood a colour.

On top of the simple tools, more complex designer techniques are added in Flash, one of the most important being layers. Layers allow you to make images move and even just to be drawn on separate layers of the canvas therefore, you can make a background on one layer and a character on the other and then only animate the character as it’s on it’s own separate layer.

Motion tweens are defining two points on the canvas that require movement and then Flash attempts to animate it for you. This is extremely helpful if you want something like a person to run across the canvas. If told correctly, Flash may be able to pick up the motion tween and make the person run for you instead of you having to animate it each time the person moves.

Sound is also a very commonly used technique in Flash whether it be sound effects or music. Flash shows an easy way to add sound: by using layers. Not only are there image layers, but there are also sound layers. This means that you can have over one sound playing at once for example, a sound effect or voice clip playing over a song. Flash consists of easy to use methods that allow sound easy to add to a piece and Flash also comes with sample sound effects for you to try out.

Like all of the other Adobe programs, Flash has a number of keyboard shortcuts. Ome can include Ctrl+S to save a file, Shift+F12 to publish an animation and Ctrl+Alt+A to bring up the action buttons. It is easy to find these keyboard shortcuts because they are all stated in the menu. Keyboard shortcuts are great for getting things done fast and without having to open up several menus to find the right command.

Source: Book: “Flash In An Instant” by Toot kinkoph

Research For Project: The Origin Of Flash

Today, I spent around an hour researching the origins of Flash.



Flash Animation

The origins of Flash


Flash was originally created by Macromedia in the 1900’s but was later bought by Adobe in 2005.

It was first majorly used by John Kricfalusi, the Ren and Stimpy creator when he made a short internet cartoon titled George Liquor. After the success of George Liquor, Kricfalusi went on to make more Flash animations such as music videos, shorts for icebox.com and adverts. This led to a growth in popularity of the Flash industry and by this point in time, Flash cartoons were popping up all over the place.

Following George Liquor, a new Flash cartoon was introduced called WhirlGirl on February 26, 1999 created by David B. Williams. It was an extremely popular webshow about a girl living in the future and fighting for freedom (a freedom fighter).

In 2001, the first ever to-be Flash full-feature cinema film started production titled “Lil’ Pimp”. For unknown reasons, Sony eventually decided not to showcase it in cinemas despite it having a large budget and known voice actors such as William Shatner and Bernie Mac. Eventually, the film was released on DVD.

Since then, a number of popular cartoons have been produced using Flash such as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, The Bobinogs, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi and Happy Tree Friends.

Flash is a commonly used program for producing online series such as Off-Mikes by ESPN, Animax Entertainment: Gotham Girls by Warner Brothers, Crime Time by Future Thought Productions and HomestarRunner by Mike and Matt Chapman. These are the popular shows created by actual companies but fanimations are immensely popular among the community as well.

Fanimations are animations made by fans based off a certain franchise. Popular fanimations include the forty minute movie, Nazo Unleashed by Chakra-X based off Sonic the Hedgehog, the ongoing Warrior Cats fanimation by SSSWarriorCats based off Warrior Cats by Erin Hunter and the immensely popular web shorts, Sonic Shorts based off Sonic the Hedgehog which are a number of hilarious clips put together by a number of different animators.

This shows that Flash is a pretty easy program to use as most fanimations are produced by people who only learnt to use Flash by themselves or from other’s tutorials and not by actually attaining Flash as a career.


This research was done via internet however, I'm planning on picking up some books at the library to do some more research some time this week.



Tomorrow, I'll go onto more research such as Flash used in actual music videos, other animating programs and more.

Project: Music Video Proposal

My Proposal
For my project I intend on making an animated music video with my own original characters. The characters I have created are cats for a story I intend to write one day, the main characters and probably the main ones I shall use for the music video will be called Shadow, Phantom and Lumina.

The program I want to use is Flash 5 since I have this at home and I have used it to do a fanimation (fan animation from a franchise) before and it is a professional animating program. I made some test flashes including a Wolf nodding it’s head and a cat blinking and then I went on to make a fanimation of Pokemon titled “Time Twist Introduction”.

Since I have to use non-copywrite music I will either use a track created in the media suite or I will use some non-copywrite music from YouTube’s AudioSwap system which is a list of songs that singers and bands have agreed to allow usage from other people for free. At the moment I am thinking of using a song from AudioSwap by the band Evanescence as they have a lot of free songs in AudioSwap.

I intend to make an animated music video as a future career interest I have is to be a cartoon animator. Through this project, two skills that I think I would gain include experience using Flash 5, it takes a lot of practice to animate smoothly with the right amount of frames and backgrounds so this should help me to improve on that. Another skill I will develop on would be drawing cats. I draw a whole lot in my spare time but it’s usually Sonic the Hedgehog art so it would do me some good to try animating something I don’t draw that much at the moment.



This is a screenshot from my first real animation using Flash, “Time Twist Introduction”. It’s a fanimation and can be viewed on YouTube via this link:

It will influence my final project as it was a hard-worked attempt at actually using Flash 5 and I’m still pleased with it to this day, I shall use it as inspiration for my current project.


This is a screenshot from my first animation I ever attempted to make back in 2006. Back then, I had no professional animation programs or art programs so I settled with drawing on Microsoft Paint with a mouse and making the pictures move using Ulead VideoStudio 6. It can be viewed here:

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve come extremely far since I’ve made “The Evil Of Nazo” trailer compared to my “Time Twist Introduction” but I still look back at this for inspiration and motivation.


One of my biggest inspirations to start animating was a YouTube series by a user named AlliKatNya who made a fanimation based off my favourite book series “Warriors”. One of her animations can be viewed here:





I really liked her style and smooth animation and it inspired me to try it myself and also partly to do a cat animation for my project.






Another Warriors fanimation is done by a team of animators named “SSSWarriorcats”. I think their animating is truly remarkable and it greatly inspires me! In fact, SSSWarriorCats and AlliKatNya’s Warriors animations were what inspired me to make that Pokemon animation. SSSWarriorCats can be viewed here:





My final inspiration is a Sonic fanimation titled “Nazo Unleashed” made by Chakra-X. It is about Sonic and friends fighting an evil hedgehog named Nazo. I truly love this animation and the fact that the animator spent 2 whole years on this is truly remarkable! The whole animation is around 40 minutes. 2 years spent on a 40 minute animation. This is why I truly look up to this animation. The original animation, “The Power Of Nazo” was done a few years back but “Nazo Unleashed” was a remake and a much better one at that, the whole animation is ten times better than the original one and you can tell the creator put a lot of effort into this.

Project: Music Video

For the 'Project' unit, I have chosen to make a music video in the media section.

The reason I chose to do this is because I enjoy making videos and using movie making software.

There is something I have decided to do differently however,I have decided to make an animated music video instead of a filmed one.

I have decided to base it off a cat book I have considered writing in the future titles "Forgotten Shadows" that I based of my favourite book series, "Warrior Cats" by Erin Hunter.

The main characters and ones present in the music video include:
Shadow: The main protagonist. A young cat that lives in the mountains and called upon by Elder Raymond to restore the five things that make the world.
Phantom: The main antagonist, the one who tore away the 5 things that make the world. He's plotting to stop Shadow at all costs, even if it means death.
Lumina: A young she-cat who lives at the mountain foot in a small cottage with her owners. She befriends Shadow half way through his quest and decides to travel along with him to help restore the world. She later becomes Shadow's mate but is then killed by Phantom.

I am planning on using the song "My Immortal" by Evanescence as it doesn't seem to be copyrighted and it will follow the ending of the book where the Shadow's mate, Lumina is killed by Phantom. It is very sad and fits with the story well.

In the half term, I will be making character sheets for Shadow, Phantom and Lumina, doing research on animations and making a storyboard for the music video.

Lesson on Myspace and Youtube

On the 6th of October, we had a lesson where we read a report on Youtube and Myspace from 2005.

It was a very long discussion, we talked about the article for an hour but I did however find it useful.

The article was about how Youtube and Myspace affects the lives of young people and I kind of agree with what they have to say.

There was a lot about people spending a lot of time on Youtube and Myspace and also some illegal stuff that's put on Youtube from leaked games to cartoon clips and I do see that this stuff happens a lot.

I do think that we talked for a bit too long though and people seemed to be getting restless by the end.

I did find this quite helpful though, I learnt more about Youtube and Myspace's origins and when they were first produced.

Campaign Brief

For our current project we were told to make an animation to inform people about the rights of children.

My group chose to do WaterAid to inform people about the lack of water. We used the UNICEF website to get information and ideas about what is going on in the world. The reason we chose to do it on water was because water is an essential and vital part of life yet many countries lack the simple ability to obtain it.

Inspiration to make animations came from Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python animator. Examples of his animations are as followed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpXUd_kesA

This animation is meant to be humorous. Terry Gilliam does this by using people with odd-looking faces and colourful backgrounds. The voiceover is almost humorous as well which goes with the humorous idea of the whole animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLfN9psJo_E&feature=fvw

This animation is probably supposed to be more humorous than the previous one. The animation is very simple and the faces are again very distorted to make them humorous.

Our second inspiration came from when we went to the Rodchenko & Popova exhibition.

The two are linked because they also do a lot of montages by cutting up images and putting them together to make collages kind of like how Monty Python makes his animations.

Media Exam (Report)

On the 30th of September, we had a Media exam.

The aim was to write a report about our previews to Inspire!

I actually found this easier than I thought because I pretty much new what to write and I was prepared for the things I intended to do such as the week before when I collected some sketches and comments from my group.

The writing itself was pretty easy and I actually found it hard to keep to the word limits!

I think I did quite well in the end and I'm pleased it's now over.

Teahcer's TV

A while ago, Teacher's TV came in and filmed and interviewed our Diploma class.

I haven't much to say really, it kind of just felt like a normal day to me because I didn't get interviewed but I though I'd post it anyway.

Some people (including the teachers) got interviewed about what the class is like and they might put it on TV!

I hope I see myself!

Fashion Show At The RichMix

It's a little late to be posting this but I forgot to at the time of the event.

On July 7th 2008 some of our Diploma class went to help organise an A level fashion show at the RichMix in Bethnal Green.

It was a very long day and tiring too but it was split into two parts.

The first session was from the start of school to around 4pm.

We spent the whole time setting things up: sticking art on the walls, helping set the area up, ect.

I found this very boring and tiring and I didn't much like it, I didn't want to go back to the second session.

The second session went from around 5pm to 9pm and I found this much more enjoyable.

It was really just making sure everything was ready in time and then me and Cheyenne were told to wait by the door inviting the parents and viewers in and tell them where to go.

This was more easy because we wearn't rushing around all the time.

In the end I think that it was a very succesful event and the show went extremely well.

The A level students were awarded an award for Best Denim by GAP for their efforts.

Edward Scissorhands Dance Workshop

A while back, two dancers from the Edward Scissorhands production called Jack and Vicky came to our school to teach us some of the dance moves from the performance.

We first did a number of warm ups including voice and action ones and then we went into actual dance moves.

We had to get into groups of two and I was with Cheyenne. We were then told to make up some dance moves that also represented what you would do at a BBQ.

Cheyenne and I had a nice mix of dance BBQ moves including eating, making a hotdog, playing volleyball and swimming.

We were then given some music from the performance and we did our dance moves in time to the music.

After that we showed our dances to the rest of the class and gained some helpful feedback.

I found the BBQ dancing quite fun, I enjoyed making up all the different moves and I quite liked showing them to the class but I didn't really enjoy the warm up. I found it tiring and hard to adjust to since we don't generally do many warm up's in our actual Diploma Drama class so I found this new and weird at the same time as being intersting.