Flash 5 Cartooning (with CD-ROM)
by Mark Clarkson

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Book Reviews of Flash 5 Cartooning (with CD-ROM)

Book Review: No kidding, this is a must have book!
Summary: 5 Stars

What Clarkson does is to provide clear and consise instructions and tutorials on how to create animations using the flash toolset. More than just a "how to use flash" book, Flash 5Cartooning, illuminates the "how" of animation productions that can be used from a one-person studio to a production studio of dozens of people.

I especially enjoyed and learned a lot from the "bobsey Model" chapter (chapt 9) and chapt 11 (layout, style and camera moves) that inspired me to try some of the things mentioned in those chapters. And there's gems scattered through out this entire book.

This is not a book to teach you cartooning (the list in the preface has many books for that), rather, this is a book to take your static cartoons and breathe some "12 frames per second" life to them. There are a few rare books that I will tell friends that if they buy it and don't like it, I'll buy it back. Flash 5 Cartooning joins the ranks of those books.

This book now occupies the space next to my copy of Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation book(ISBN # 1-56010-084-2). Higher praise, I don't know how to give!

Summary of Flash 5 Cartooning (with CD-ROM)

The book has two outstanding features: first, it's about making cartoons, not Flash. It just so happens that the tool of choice is Flash and the mode of distribution is the Web. Topics like scripting (writing a cartoon story, not computer scripting), storyboarding, layout, camera moves, and basic animation technique are well covered, as well as the Flash interface, how Flash works, how to compress media for faster downloading, basic HTML, and other Flash- and Web-specific topics.

The second great feature is the CD-ROM, which includes samples and material used in the chapters, but above all contains a digital version of the book. Not a stripped-down, bare-bones text version, but a full-color, searchable version. Having a material like this at one's fingertips on CD-ROM raises its usability rating through the roof.

Written in a clear, concise, and lighthearted voice, the book spans 15 chapters. Every page has a handful of screen shots, and every page is in full color. There were no shortcuts taken in either content or production value.

It's remarkable that there aren't more books like this. Sure, Flash is a great tool for all kinds of dynamic graphics and interactivity, but the Flash cartoon sites get a disproportionately high number of hits. Flash cartoons download fast, are often wonderfully creative, and in most cases carry a strong sense of the artist who created them. This is what Flash and the Web have created--a venue for independent animators. Maybe cartoons still aren't taken seriously and that's why so little has been published on the topic; regardless, Flash 5 Cartooning excels in its class, not because the genre is so nichey, but because it is simply a terrific book. --Mike Caputo

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