Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Thinking About Flash

As I learn the basics of Flash animation, I’ve been looking around to see what people have been able to do with it. I returned to Homestarrunner.com, a goofy cartoon website I used to like years ago, before I knew what Flash was or that it was the program that was used to make this and so many other cartoons circulating around on the internet.

The piece I looked at was part of a series of cartoons featuring a character named Strong Bad, a sort of macho-voiced goofball in who wears boxing gloves but can somehow still type on a keyboard (if ever there was a reason to love cartoons, this is it).

Strong Bad sits behind a computer screen and reads off an email from a “fan” who asks him if he can videotape his wedding. We see him from behind, and as he reads, we can see the back of his head move with the words he says and his reflection in the computer screen he sits in front of acts like a mirror.

Later, we see a series of vignettes that basically satirize the bad job this character would do if he got the job as a wedding videographer. Fairly simple green and blue backgrounds are used to show grass or sky and help accent the cartoonish feel of this other world. It’s an interesting way of making fun of very real-life phenomena in the context of a world where everything is silly and clearly fabricated and off-base.

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