Last night I came across a CD containing all the files of my ill-fated
first attempt to make a Flash cartoon. I had abandoned this project over
three years ago. Today I spent a few hours fixing some bugs, but otherwise
I’m posting it “as is.” The most noticeable omission
is the lack of audio, yet I think it actually works quite well as a silent
cartoon.
Several years ago I was struck with a nagging infatuation. I had been
coming in contact with the Object of My Affection (OoMA) on a fairly
regular basis for at least a year. Finally I mustered up the courage
to do what any other red-blooded American man would do: I decided to
make a cartoon.
I wrote the script within 20 minutes late one night in early 2003,
and then proceeded to spend more than half a year attempting to put
the animation together, using Flash software. I had just worked through
a couple instructional books, and was now attempting my first original
Flash cartoon. It quickly proved to be too ambitious for an inaugural
project, and many of the details I was trying to implement were unnecessarily
complex.
The audio would be my downfall. In addition to a voiceover, I had planned
to have music loops playing in the background, fading in and out during
scene changes. Getting the sounds to play as intended required programming
skills beyond my novice abilities. I dropped the entire project six
months after starting it, and didn’t attempt another Flash cartoon
until a year and a half later (“O
Beckoning Babe,” which was inspired by another OoMA).
I lost contact with OoMA when she moved out of state, and I momentarily
forgot about the project that she had instigated. When I found the CD
last night though, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the uncompleted
work. I decided to make only a few functional tweaks, and finally call
it “complete.”