Along with online galleries of editorial cartoons on its website, the CBC has introduced
a series of animated clips to highlight the lighter side of the 2006 federal election
campaign.
Many are familliar with the creativity of Mark Fiore, who pioneered Flash animation
combined with editorial cartooning and has carved out for himself a sustained and
successful career as one of the world's few animated editorial cartoonists. While
animated clips have been around for several years, no single clip had really become
so popular in the public domain until the folks at JibJab released "This Land" during
the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election campaign.
Flash animated clips made its debut in Canadian election politics when Jim Phillips did
a series of cartoons for the Globe & Mail and CTV News during the last federal election
in 2004.
Patrick LaMontagne has been producing his own series of animated cartoons during
the duration of the election campaign leading up to the January 23 decision day.
Patrick's cartoons are archived on this page of the CBC website.
You don't need to be a fortune teller to predict that more and more animated cartoons
will become a increasing part of the future of online news and editorializing.
a series of animated clips to highlight the lighter side of the 2006 federal election
campaign.
Many are familliar with the creativity of Mark Fiore, who pioneered Flash animation
combined with editorial cartooning and has carved out for himself a sustained and
successful career as one of the world's few animated editorial cartoonists. While
animated clips have been around for several years, no single clip had really become
so popular in the public domain until the folks at JibJab released "This Land" during
the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election campaign.
Flash animated clips made its debut in Canadian election politics when Jim Phillips did
a series of cartoons for the Globe & Mail and CTV News during the last federal election
in 2004.
Patrick LaMontagne has been producing his own series of animated cartoons during
the duration of the election campaign leading up to the January 23 decision day.
Patrick's cartoons are archived on this page of the CBC website.
You don't need to be a fortune teller to predict that more and more animated cartoons
will become a increasing part of the future of online news and editorializing.
| FLASH ANIMATION and the ELECTION December 2005 |
Here's Patrick on what goes on behind the scenes of his Flash cartoons, and where he sees editorial
animation going in the future....
How long did it take you to come up with the clip?
Coming up with the idea was just like coming up with any cartoon idea. Putting it together is what took
the work. From sketches to e-mailing out the completed file, this one took about 20 hours.
Was it done in Flash?
The final output is a Flash animation although some cartoonists use a program called 'ToonBoom Studio'
for this sort of work as well. Everything was sketched on paper first, then scanned. Flash is a vector
drawing program, like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. You can use some bitmaps in it if you'd like but
they may significantly increase the file size, so its not advisable. I only used one bitmap in the 'Election
That Ate Christmas' animation. That was the starscape in the beginning. It's very low resolution and was
saved at low quality. Everything else is vector drawing. For those that don't know, vector art is very low
resolution and will keep its same quality no matter how far you zoom in or out. I used to work for a sign
company for a couple of years and everything in signage has to be done in vector, so it was second
nature to use it in Flash. It can be hard to get used to in the beginning.
I used a lot of different software to create this short little animation. For the graphic portions, I used
Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, and Flash MX. For the voice recording and sound effects, I used Sony
SoundForge. For the music, I used Cakewalk's Sonar Home Studio which allows me to plug my
synthesizer into the computer and play directly into the software. I can record different tracks to use as
the background soundtrack.
For those who know nothing about Flash, how long does it take to learn how to use it?
That's probably different for everyone. I've been dabbling in Flash for over a year, but it was just a
hobby until recently. I learned from a number of different sources. I have seven or eight books on Flash,
some good, some not so good. I took a number of online tutorials, some were free, most I paid for.
Because I was working at a full-time day job until May of this year, and putting out five or six cartoons a
week, I didn't devote a lot of time to learning Flash until this past summer. I didn't put out my first
animated editorial cartoon until a few months ago. If you have the time, and the right instruction, its not
that hard to learn.
The hardest thing to wrap your head around is that its minimalist animation. It isn't like Looney Tunes,
which in my opinion, is REAL animation. When a character speaks, their whole face moves, when they
make a movement, you can see the anticipation in their entire body. Flash animation forces you to
consider file size, reusing parts, sacrificing skin tones and shading, etc. When doing caricatures, I like
using an airbrushed look. Due to time constraints and file sizes, I can't do that in these little animations.
Many times in Flash animation, when a character speaks, only the mouth and eyebrows will move, as well
as the eyelids blinking, etc. Flash makes used of 'animations within animations' as well. For example,
you can create a mini movie clip of just the character's eyes blinking. When you place that on the face as
a 'symbol', you never have to worry about remembering to make the eyes blink for the duration of the
animation, because its already doing it for you. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
Can you run flash on any computer?
Flash works equally well on Mac and PC. It's not a RAM hog like Photoshop and because the goal of
Flash is to produce small file sizes, you rarely end up with an unmanageable file.
Are you getting paid for the amount of time you put into such a clip?
No. I am getting paid, but not well. At least for these ones. The CBC didn't budget for this, but truth be
told, I wanted to do this particular run of animations for a few different reasons.
The election gave me the opportunity to pitch them on this as they are always trying to produce new
coverage when this sort of thing is going on, hence the editorial cartoon galleries they're running right
now as well. Also, I wanted to give myself deadlines to see if I could produce what I was planning.
Basically forcing myself to put my money where my mouth is. I've agreed to do seven or eight of these
until the election is over. It's an awful lot of work considering I still have to put out editorial cartoons and a
few illustrations for clients over the next seven weeks. But I knew that if I didn't give myself a deadline, I
wouldn't do one every week. Other paying gigs would end up taking priority...or I'd cave in to
procrastination.
I'm doing this for the exposure, the experience, the challenge, and to add animated cartoons to my
repertoire. And most importantly, it's fun. There is money to be made in Flash animation, especially in
advertising. I know a couple of people in the States who make a very good living at it. But, they're
primarily graphic designers, something I've done, and no longer wish to do.
These days, none of us are getting paid well for the time we're putting into editorial cartooning...why
should this be different? That's not a complaint, just an observation. I'm not in this profession to get rich.
Although, I do believe, that with the changing landscape of this profession, the survivors will be those
who make their own opportunities.
Do you think this is the future of editorial cartooning?
I think that everyone would have a different answer to this one. I've only been in this profession since
2001, so I don't even have the experience of what the 'past' of this profession was like. I can't lament the
glory days because I never saw them. I know that the destination for most, used to be an in-house
cartooning job at a major daily. Personally, I think that the profession has changed so much, that when
the current in-house cartoonists vacate their positions, whether its their choice or their paper's choice,
the position will not be filled. I think most papers will be going completely syndicated or have minimal
contracts. This is just my opinion. But it is on this premise that I don't think I, personally, will ever be
employed as an in-house cartoonist. Maybe a small contract, but I'm not counting on it.
For me, Flash is part of MY future of editorial cartooning. I don't think its THE future of editorial
cartooning, though. With the speed that media is changing, and the options that are opening, I think you'll
see ten different cartoonists doing ten different things and it'll still be considered editorial cartooning by
some. Then again, many people don't consider Photoshop a valid art medium, so what do I know?
If anybody has any questions about Flash, drop Patrick a line at cartoon@cartoonink.com and he'll be
happy to answer them.
animation going in the future....
How long did it take you to come up with the clip?
Coming up with the idea was just like coming up with any cartoon idea. Putting it together is what took
the work. From sketches to e-mailing out the completed file, this one took about 20 hours.
Was it done in Flash?
The final output is a Flash animation although some cartoonists use a program called 'ToonBoom Studio'
for this sort of work as well. Everything was sketched on paper first, then scanned. Flash is a vector
drawing program, like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. You can use some bitmaps in it if you'd like but
they may significantly increase the file size, so its not advisable. I only used one bitmap in the 'Election
That Ate Christmas' animation. That was the starscape in the beginning. It's very low resolution and was
saved at low quality. Everything else is vector drawing. For those that don't know, vector art is very low
resolution and will keep its same quality no matter how far you zoom in or out. I used to work for a sign
company for a couple of years and everything in signage has to be done in vector, so it was second
nature to use it in Flash. It can be hard to get used to in the beginning.
I used a lot of different software to create this short little animation. For the graphic portions, I used
Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, and Flash MX. For the voice recording and sound effects, I used Sony
SoundForge. For the music, I used Cakewalk's Sonar Home Studio which allows me to plug my
synthesizer into the computer and play directly into the software. I can record different tracks to use as
the background soundtrack.
For those who know nothing about Flash, how long does it take to learn how to use it?
That's probably different for everyone. I've been dabbling in Flash for over a year, but it was just a
hobby until recently. I learned from a number of different sources. I have seven or eight books on Flash,
some good, some not so good. I took a number of online tutorials, some were free, most I paid for.
Because I was working at a full-time day job until May of this year, and putting out five or six cartoons a
week, I didn't devote a lot of time to learning Flash until this past summer. I didn't put out my first
animated editorial cartoon until a few months ago. If you have the time, and the right instruction, its not
that hard to learn.
The hardest thing to wrap your head around is that its minimalist animation. It isn't like Looney Tunes,
which in my opinion, is REAL animation. When a character speaks, their whole face moves, when they
make a movement, you can see the anticipation in their entire body. Flash animation forces you to
consider file size, reusing parts, sacrificing skin tones and shading, etc. When doing caricatures, I like
using an airbrushed look. Due to time constraints and file sizes, I can't do that in these little animations.
Many times in Flash animation, when a character speaks, only the mouth and eyebrows will move, as well
as the eyelids blinking, etc. Flash makes used of 'animations within animations' as well. For example,
you can create a mini movie clip of just the character's eyes blinking. When you place that on the face as
a 'symbol', you never have to worry about remembering to make the eyes blink for the duration of the
animation, because its already doing it for you. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
Can you run flash on any computer?
Flash works equally well on Mac and PC. It's not a RAM hog like Photoshop and because the goal of
Flash is to produce small file sizes, you rarely end up with an unmanageable file.
Are you getting paid for the amount of time you put into such a clip?
No. I am getting paid, but not well. At least for these ones. The CBC didn't budget for this, but truth be
told, I wanted to do this particular run of animations for a few different reasons.
The election gave me the opportunity to pitch them on this as they are always trying to produce new
coverage when this sort of thing is going on, hence the editorial cartoon galleries they're running right
now as well. Also, I wanted to give myself deadlines to see if I could produce what I was planning.
Basically forcing myself to put my money where my mouth is. I've agreed to do seven or eight of these
until the election is over. It's an awful lot of work considering I still have to put out editorial cartoons and a
few illustrations for clients over the next seven weeks. But I knew that if I didn't give myself a deadline, I
wouldn't do one every week. Other paying gigs would end up taking priority...or I'd cave in to
procrastination.
I'm doing this for the exposure, the experience, the challenge, and to add animated cartoons to my
repertoire. And most importantly, it's fun. There is money to be made in Flash animation, especially in
advertising. I know a couple of people in the States who make a very good living at it. But, they're
primarily graphic designers, something I've done, and no longer wish to do.
These days, none of us are getting paid well for the time we're putting into editorial cartooning...why
should this be different? That's not a complaint, just an observation. I'm not in this profession to get rich.
Although, I do believe, that with the changing landscape of this profession, the survivors will be those
who make their own opportunities.
Do you think this is the future of editorial cartooning?
I think that everyone would have a different answer to this one. I've only been in this profession since
2001, so I don't even have the experience of what the 'past' of this profession was like. I can't lament the
glory days because I never saw them. I know that the destination for most, used to be an in-house
cartooning job at a major daily. Personally, I think that the profession has changed so much, that when
the current in-house cartoonists vacate their positions, whether its their choice or their paper's choice,
the position will not be filled. I think most papers will be going completely syndicated or have minimal
contracts. This is just my opinion. But it is on this premise that I don't think I, personally, will ever be
employed as an in-house cartoonist. Maybe a small contract, but I'm not counting on it.
For me, Flash is part of MY future of editorial cartooning. I don't think its THE future of editorial
cartooning, though. With the speed that media is changing, and the options that are opening, I think you'll
see ten different cartoonists doing ten different things and it'll still be considered editorial cartooning by
some. Then again, many people don't consider Photoshop a valid art medium, so what do I know?
If anybody has any questions about Flash, drop Patrick a line at cartoon@cartoonink.com and he'll be
happy to answer them.