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Adobe/Macromedia Flash MX 2004:
Animating Traditional Himalayan Stories
Grade Level: 7 – 12
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Notes for Instructor:
This lesson was conceived as an instruction for a graphic technology classroom but can also be adapted for use in a social studies or Asian languages classroom. This lesson presupposes students are familiar with the basics of Flash MX 2004.
Objective:
In this lesson, you will animate a traditional Himalayan story using the FLASH techniques you have learned this semester.
Part I: Animating Traditional Tales, Myths, and Fables
Discussion: Students are familiar with many instances of animation of traditional tales: Disney’s Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, etc and cartoons such as “Fractured Fairytales”. Discuss some of the characteristics of the characters in the stories – clear personality traits and ethics, physical traits, use of color and facial expression to convey meaning.
For a sample of a Flash animation of traditional Hindu tales, go to Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Palley
Part II: Introduction to Himalayan Culture
Your cartoon must be based upon traditional Hindu or Buddhist stories, or other stories of the Himalayas . Visit the following websites to select your story:
(For Chinese Language or History Classes: Tales of the Monkey King Lessons)
Part III: Creating Your Animation
As in all good tales, there are heroes, there are scoundrels, there are fools, and there are the “redeemed” fools or scoundrels. There is something or someone evil for the hero or heroine to fight against.
- Before you begin, simplify your tale into three scenes: a set-up scene, an action scene, and a resolution scene. These will be scenes numbered 2, 3, and 4.
- Next, create the images of your main characters. Think about the actions you want the character to take. For example: If your character has shifty eyes, you may want to create the eyes as a separate movie object. Or is he/she swings a sword, make it easy to later animate by creating a separate arm object.
- Now you are ready to begin working on your scenes.
- Complete your movie by creating a preloader scene which goes to a Scene 1 after loading the entire movie. Scene 1 should contain a button which must be clicked to start your movie. See the sample Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Palley for ideas about how to create a preloader that helps to set up your story.
- At the end of your movie, the viewer should find them selves looking at a button that will replay the movie if desired. The button should take the viewer to the beginning of Scene 2.
- FILE > SAVE as fla file
- Be sure your movie has created a SWF file so that it can be viewed in a browser without the use of a FLASH program.
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