After Bardel adapted Flash for the WB television series, ¡Mucha Lucha!, many other studios followed suit. © 2003 Warner Bros. Animation.

The surge of animation’s popularity dovetailed perfectly with the arrival of the Internet, which suddenly became the world’s biggest cartoon fest, and Macromedia’s Flash, became the tool of choice for online content, introducing animation to millions of people who had never had it so accessible to them. However, animation aficionados, this one included, failed to see the potential at first glance. The vast majority of online Flash animation was very poorly executed, and downright nasty in many cases. The principles of timing, physics, acting performance, weight, design and decent effects animation were all missing. I remember feeling like it was dumbing down animation even worse than the catastrophic animation of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Joe Public was getting used to the lowest form of animation ever!

But this gloomy cloud had a silver lining. As Flash artists learned more and more about animation, a few of them migrated away from the Internet and found themselves working the animation studios. Lots of studios will holler, “We did it first!” but whatever the case may be, the transformation of Flash into a tool for creating television series cartoons was a rapid one. In Vancouver, Bardel Animation, who had been primarily a service studio doing traditional animation and ink-and-paint work for the major studios, developed a little gem created in Flash called Mr. Dink, which became a landmark cross-platform cartoon short format series, showing up on Atom/Shockwave on the Web and on the CTV Comedy Network as well. It didn’t take long before Bardel had adapted Flash to work for the WB television series, ¡Mucha Lucha!, and, shortly thereafter, many other studios followed suit.

Here in Vancouver where I live and work now, several studios are using Flash to create television shows, like Studio B Productions, who has Being Ian, Yakkity Yak and The Amazing Adrenaline Brothers; the wildly successful Atomic Betty from Atomic Cartoons and Stories from the 7th Fire from Bardel. There is lots more going on, and when you realize that this much Flash animation is being produced in Vancouver alone, it really is quite apparent that there is a ‘repatriation’ happening in the animation industry! It is worth noting, that many of the successful series we are seeing on television today got their start on the Internet, as simple, animated shorts created independently by unknown animators armed only with computers, the Flash program, some time on their hands, and some quirky, inventive creativity.

A short time ago, all of these shows would have been sent off to Asia or India to be animated, colored and composited, but digital tools have made it possible for these productions to stay home, where I think they belong. And Flash isn’t the only player in this game. Toon Boom’s Harmony package is making inroads as well, and for good reason. While Flash is an affordable program, and people have gotten used to its idiosyncrasies, Flash is simply not designed for animation, and every single step of the way dealing with Flash, is a kind of work-around solution.

There are those who swear by it, and it certainly is great for some things, but it is not an animation pipeline friendly program, period. It’s greatest strength is that it’s cheap as chips, and that’s the bottom line. Macromedia doesn’t care enough to develop a more animation friendly program, because animation represents far too little of their market. Toon Boom, on the other hand, is working with artists in the animation industry in an attempt to design a tool that is truly designed for the animation pipeline. Working closely with Nelvana and Mercury Filmworks, Toon Boom has developed Harmony, which can do everything Flash does, only better, and it approaches all of its development with consideration of the animation industries needs.

Yes, it’s a lot more expensive than Flash, and there are always bugs to work out, but time will tell whether or not Flash will continue to dominate this new market that has, much to my delight, brought so much work back onto North American soil. I hope that the industry will heartily support the development of better, more intuitive software designed with the animation pipeline in mind to make the process smoother and smoother, which could pave the way to ensure that the work which has returned to North America, will stay here!

Another very positive aspect in which these new cartoon series are being produced, is that programs like Flash and Harmony take away the need for the old traditional animation hierarchy, and put far more creative input into the hands of the animation artists. An entry level studio artist in the old days of animation could expect to land a tedious job, grinding out endless repetitive inbetweens, completely separated from the higher creative process, simply a tiny cog in a big machine. Today’s Flash crews are compact and work in teams. An entry-level artist gets to work on every aspect of an animated film: animation, lip sync, layout, camera moves, effects animation, etc. Flash animators today will actually work closely with the director’s storyboard notes shortly after entering into a production, and are able to have a real creative impact on a show. They know the story behind the scene or sequence they are working on. These were foreign concepts to the worker bees behind the scenes in old school cartoon factories. It will be exciting to see where these artists take us in the next 10 or 20 years, having a better sense earlier on in their careers of the actual animation filmmaking process.