Jul
18
2007
Flash Frame-by-Frame
Jamie Gallant, an animator living in Ontario, Canada, is using Flash in a non-traditional way to make - well, traditional animation. He’s animating frame-by-frame without symbols or stock art. This graduate of Sheridan’s Classical Animation Program thumbnails a few key poses on paper, scans them into the computer and retraces those to get started. Then he creates his timing chart in Flash and starts drawing with his Wacom tablet.
Here is Jamie’s latest entry into the 10 Second Club. The audio is from The Shining
Run Rabbit rough animation
An intro for an abandoned website
Tags: Canada, Sheridan
July 18th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
These are all great! Top ones gotta be my favorite.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I can’t help but hope that future versions of flash will be more conducive to doing work like this. Hopefully with the introduction of Adobe flex, Adobe will be able to focus on the actionscript releases and the flash releases a little more seperately so they can focus on the artistic tools in flash that haven’t been touched for ages (such as the brush tool)
July 18th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Thats nice work and all, he’s really good. But there are lots of people out there who use flash in a similar fashion if not the same way.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
looks awesome….but i agree with teraissa….this isnt a “non-traditional” way of using flash for animation….
save more time and forget the paper and scanning
July 18th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Animator Anik Rosenblum has posted his short “The Autumnal Walk” on You Tube. Anik animated it frame-by-frame in Flash with a Wacom tablet. Great design and timing. It looks like “traditional” cartooned animation.
The Autumnal Walk
July 19th, 2007 at 2:29 am
thanks for the links and feedback, guys. i think there’s been a misunderstanding. i never suggested that what he’s done is unique. i was making the point of his work being uncommon - or as i put it “non-traditional.” Flash is primarily used as a symbol-based animation tool, and I’ve posted at least 20 other shorts (and Phil Nibbelink’s feature) on this blog that showcase traditional animation. these are still minorities amidst the puppet-based projects tho. regardless, thanks for the info, and please point out other artists using the tool in this way.
July 19th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Hi, I think this animation is great, and it’s great to see this animation being done, and being done so well at that! Good stuff!
July 21st, 2007 at 9:10 am
There’s no doubt that the dude’s got talent. And I love that there are animators out there who use Flash in a “traditional’ sense. I want to see more of that. However, I can’t help but notice that the first clip is over animated. The scene should show restraint — like the kid for instance. Just felt that there was too much going on here. Keep it simple.
Now with that short film, The Autumnal Walk, by Anik Rosenblum — that was brilliant. I loved loved loved that!
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
There are dozens of animators who have been using Flash (since version 4 and earlier) as a completely traditional full-aniamtion tool with a Wacom tablet, to just name a few:
Sean Scott, 1999: http://www.atomfilms.com/film/tongue_twister.jsp
http://www.atomfilms.com/film/legend_raggot.jsp?channelKeyword=channel_nsfw
Anik Rosenblum, 2003: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3ZTq4grPcU
Rachel Morrison, 2001:
http://www.raemorrison.com/
It’s awesome to see more animators using it like this, and now with the Cintiq technology spreading around it makes it even more accessible for story artists, designers, and classical animators to use Flash as a nice paper-style, frame-by-frame animation drawing tool.
Hey Aaron, check out Ben Jeddrie’s latest music video for The Stolen Minks! All Flash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX12k4PDSQ4