Certain teachers, professors, and mentors stick with you. It’s a familiar theme. In fact, there are motion pictures dedicated to this notion—To Sir, with Love, Dead Poets Society, and Mr. Holland’s Opus come to mind—as well as books, songs, and probably dozens of other forms of communication and entertainment. One of my inspirations, Fred Rubeck, a professor in the Department of Performing Art at Elon University, North Carolina, drew my attention to an important principle over a decade ago. This was in one of the many acting and directing classes I took with him, but the principle encompasses much more than the stage. I’ve been guided by this notion in Web and multimedia design, video production, and even Flash programming. It’s summed up by Hamlet in Act III, Scene 2 of his namesake play (yes, I’m about to quote Shakespeare).

Hamlet is talking to a beloved troupe of visiting actors. He’s pleased with them, but stern in his wishes. At first, he cautions them not to overdo their craft (this is the notion of “less is more”), but at the same time … (more…)

Flash designers and Flash developers are often the same person. Why? It’s mainly because Flash has proven such a popular success and because it breathes interactive life into lightweight, great looking artwork—or, looking at it from the other side, that it spiffs up programming projects so well from a visual standpoint. The platform really serves as a blend of the disciplines of design and development, and, in light of this tendency, Jen deHaan (Adobe documentation doyenne, among other talents) has dubbed this special hybrid a Flash “deseloper,” which gives deselopers the world over an apt title. This is useful, for sure; however, the advent of Flash CS3 makes things a bit more interesting. (more…)

I spend over 75% of my workday in Flash, and it’s time I really do enjoy. If I’m not coding up a custom MP3 player, I’m designing character models for an interactive mascot or working out the navigation for a corporate slideshow. Heck, I even do video work in Flash, often using the main timeline and manual tweens to export animation for use in title sequences and interstitials that don’t end up anywhere near the Web. With each new release, Flash keeps getting better; but as much as I value the authoring environment, I’m quick to grant it doesn’t do everything I need.

Over the years, I’ve gathered a handful of free 3rd party tools that I use so often, I find myself shocked when reaching for them on a friend’s computer and—poof!—they’re not there. (more…)

In the last couple releases, Flash has made it very easy to put video online. From square one, there’s not much too it: with a new FLA document open, select File > Import > Import Video, click through the step-by-step Video Import wizard, and watch as your video content is effortlessly converted from a variety of file types—AVI, MOV, MPG, WMV, and more—to the format supported by Flash Player itself, which is FLV. If you use the default choices, Flash even puts a copy of the FLVPlayback component on the Stage for you, wiring it up automatically to load your new video content. The FLVPlayback component features a number of built-in skins, which provide a variety of VCR-like controls (pause/play, progress indicator/scrubber, volume slider, and the like) in numerous color schemes. Additional preferences may be configured in the Parameters tab, which becomes available when you click FLVPlayback on the Stage to select it.

As painless as the above is, there’s one snag that may cost you some unwanted bandwidth hassle. (more…)