Flash Exercise 3

FOCUS Journalism package with multiple segments and multiple audio files

PURPOSE Show your competence with button control, motion, text and all Flash and design skills acquired to date.

> See the example. You can download a template FLA there.

Example for Flash Exercise 3

VALUE 5 points (see Grading):

DETAILS Create a new, original SWF with journalistic content about a musical artist, band or genre. This subject gives you the opportunity to use acceptable assets (photos and audio) to produce a professional-style package entirely in Flash.

This can be a very impressive portfolio piece for you if you pay attention to the journalism: What should the package communicate to an audience? Who is a good audience to target? (Your professor is NOT the audience!)

Requirements

NOTE that this FLA file will be quite large. If you are using Plaza for your uploads, you might need to delete some files to make room for this FLA.

Instructions

  1. Create an entirely new FLA for this assignment. (You may follow the template, but design your own buttons and choose your own fonts, colors, etc.)
  2. Research your subject matter and collect the necessary assets (facts, images and audio). Do not plagiarize. Write in your own words.
  3. Select and process your music audio files. If you are offering a sample from a recorded song (e.g., one you downloaded from iTunes or ripped from a CD), you must use 30 seconds OR LESS of that track. (We will discuss how to create such a sample in class.)
  4. Create four entirely different informational segments -- each one with its own frame label and its own stop(); action. THESE CAN BE SIMPLE, but they need to meet professional standards for accuracy, etc. One can be your intro, and another can be your credits.
  5. Demonstrate your understanding of design principles (alignment, good use of typography, color theory) in each segment. Make each segment LOOK GREAT!
  6. Create animations on the Timeline as you like, but please exercise restraint in moving and zooming photos (do not make the viewer feel seasick).
  7. Place your buttons on the Stage. Script each button to go to a different one of your segments.
  8. Script your sound control buttons, including the album covers.
  9. Test your movie very thoroughly to ensure that all buttons work properly. (HINT: Try to "break" your sound controls by clicking them in illogical and unusual combinations. If they do not break, you scripted them correctly!)
  10. We are now using SWFObject to embed the SWF in an HTML page. The instructions are simple; please follow them carefully for this assignment.
  11. Copy the SWF, the HTML file* and the FLA into one folder.
  12. Upload the folder, containing all necessary files, to your Web site. NOTE: If you are using Plaza, you may run out of space. You can deal with this by deleting older work from Plaza. TEST YOUR SWF IN THE HTML PAGE AFTER YOU UPLOAD IT! Test your buttons -- ALL of them.
  13. Send the two URLs to me (see Requirements, above).

* Make sure that your HTML page uses SWFObject correctly, and that you have uploaded the necessary files to your site.