Flash, Savior of the Universe

It is funny to me. The 2 major innovations in computer animation, 3-D and Flash, both have at their core Stop Motion Animation skill. 3-D is like Harryhausen without the need for support beams and wire removal and Flash is like paper cutouts.

I am not a big Flash animator. I know how to work the program and have done so from time to time. In fact I still have a copy of Flash 1 somewhere. But as a Stop Motion guy Flash has little to offer me. That does not mean that I don’t appreciate animation created in Flash or the program itself.

I first ran onto Flash back in the late 90s when I was teaching HTML and Web Development. As a tool for web animation it is frankly flawed by the need for internal locked timing and the need to set that time to the slowest machine downloading.

But as an animation tool Flash is a feature rich development tool that brings down production costs as assets accrue over the lifetime of a show. For many it has been the future of 2-D animation.

On Friday night February 8th at the 35th Annual Annie Awards Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi the creators of the FLASH computer software will be honored with the Ub Iwerks technical achievement award.

Jonathan Gay and Robert Tatsumi of FutureWave Software were brought together with Macromedia because of the Disney web site. They were joined by Gary Grossman in 1998 who created the Flash Player. The Flash Player may have the largest installed base of any Internet software.

These 3 innovators changed the future of the Internet and of 2-D animation. I have heard a lot of people bitch about Macromedia not supporting Flash as an animation tool. That is Macromedia. Jonathan Gay was a game designer/programmer/animator before he ever created SmartSketch (the core code that Future Splash was built on). And Future Splash Animator became Flash 1 after the Macromedia buyout.

Jonathan Gay and Robert Tatsumi created Future Splash Animator as an animation program. It is not their fault that the corporation they sold their start up to chose to treat their software as only a web utility.

Animators recognized the animation program under Flash and used it as an animation tool. John K. will tell you that he single-handedly created the field of Flash Animation. Sorry John, the best we can do is call you one of the first to recognize an animation tool as an animation tool. That may not be as much as you want but that is okay, I still love George Liquor.

Flash animation as a television animation tool has done something that the Local 839 has been unable to do, bring animation jobs back to the U.S.

When one of my students sold a show to Nick he was told that he could have it animated overseas as a traditional animation or animated in this country as a Flash animation. He wanted to have as much contact as he could with the animation team so he went with Flash. This is a common Sanrio.

Designers love Flash because it is their designs going up on the screen. Producers love it because each season is cheaper to create because the cycles and other assets build up in the library making it easier to reuse animation. And animators love it because it is affordable and they can compete with studios on an even playing field.

Jonathan, Gary and Robert you truly deserve the Ub Iwerks Award. And a thanks to Steve Gattuso for pushing so hard to get you guys the recognition you deserve.