Cartoons in Flash


After working several months on the basics of animation and vector illustration it's time for a group project in which all students have roles to equally contribute and accomplish a collaborated production. This project is a cumulative effort of students combined skills, knowledge, and ideas. Students from past courses and other classes have created a database of creative commons content. Use it! You are not suppose to create content from scratch unless you really need too. This project is about using creative commons content from our Z:drive and online.

Steps to Success

  • Get into groups. Pitch your concept to the group. Listen to each pitch politely while considering combing ideas from others.

  • Discuss all ideas of each group member and combine ideas into a final draft. Once you have a concept finalized, all group members should agree on a timeline.

  • Cover criteria closely. Assign a creative role to each group member. Begin individual roles.

  • Create a storyboard or a script and a timeline. These should be printed and submitted to teacher the 2nd day of planning.

  • Meet regularly for discussions, updates, and feedback.

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Created by Miranda Pancheco, Krista Langehennig, and Kierra Bond
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Created by Created by Sam Melnick, Kyle Frels-Hendry, & Ben Putman
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Criteria

The criteria below is intended to be divided into individual roles for each person to learn something new, be productive, and pull their weight in terms of equal effort in the group. Give each group member a specific job role below for equal participation in the production. (10% each)

  • Storyboard or script and timeline-  a story with a clear theme, a beginning, middle, ending, dilemma, resolution, and clear message
  • 3 or more Perspectives (close-up, ¾, profile, etc.) - various angles are essential for good quality cartoons
  • Title & Credits – should both be animated
  • Scenes (5 or more) - Backgrounds in all scenes - one or more should be animated with 3 layers
  • Scene Tween – animation transition from one scene to the next
  • Lip syncing character(s) – mouth movements should match voices - handouts and vid tutorials available
  • Walking or running character(s) – handouts or “walking” tutorial in Z:”Nourse, tutorials, Flash” folder
  • Music, voices, & sound effects – use microphone or Creative Commons sites such as: Findsounds, Jamendo, A1, Soundsnap, Soundjay, Stonewashed, soundboards, etc. To create your own loops use this awesome software site called looplabs. Free sound loops can be downloaded here at flashkit.com.
    There are options for editing audio. My demo is on Audacity, but Sound Booth can be used with Flash simaltaneously.
  • Effort should be apparent in all areas of your high quality production!

You may also use a website called atomiclearning which you can search for specific topics of Flash and watch short video tutorials that walk you through the steps. Also, you may ask Mr. Nourse for handouts or help with information if you need. Lip-syncing and walking cycle tutorials are in the “Z:Tutorial, Flash” folder.

Your cartoon should contain all of the above criteria. The workload should be distributed as equally as possible. Don’t waste time or your participation grade will drop daily. When the project is finished, each student will assess each group member about their overall contribution.


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View Full screen version here. Created by Markus Clardy, Kirsti, Anysa, Leslie

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Here's a good student example of a run cycle created by Anysa Medearis.

Group Assessment