. Spinning .

Okay, so I’m off my high of using Flash 8 as merely a tool to export a file into a new format.  I’ve taken the first step in building the dumb poem from scratch in Flash.

I’ve imported a single image of Mars.

Okay, so the latest revision bugged me enough to edit some more–though I won’t touch the audio, even with a itty-bitty glitch and the white noise in the back because this is about the thirtieth attempt.  Unfortunately, what this meant was updating two files in Movie Maker (a copy of the original because I’m anal-retentive), the movie itself in .wav format, this file in Typepad for the weblog, and ohmygod–Flash 8.

I travel a lot in life without knowing where I’m going or how I got there, and I work the same way.  Therefore, rather than junk things up with trying to overwrite the file in Flash, and anxious not to use up the entire hard drive with poem files, I deleted the first flash version and associated files.  I figured that hey, I got the job done the first time I tried, why would I screw up in doing it a second time?

Of course, I did.  Somehow I ended up embedding the entire movie into a one-second time frame in the wrong Flash format in the wrong flash file.  However, this is how one learns.  I tracked that sucker down, deleted all references and associated files, and went back to square one.  I realized that I wasn’t supposed to end with creating the .fla or .flv file, but rather convert it again to an .swf (or whatever). 

For me, while I may pick my way around to succeed, I’ll forget the path I took to get there.  Especially if I don’t intend to do the same thing soon.  This gave me the opportunity to reinforce the learning and because of the need to retrace steps, made me more alert to plan and reason things out.

Luck can get things done, but learning is the way to go.

I’ve tiptoed into the Flash 8 program long enough to shake off my confusion and convert the Recycling version 2 movie into a .swf file that can be played on the Flash Player and appears to be higher quality.  However, with the change in screen format I see that even making much of the text overlays even smaller in my latest editing was not enough.  It’s surprising what the various mediums and means do in subtle changes that point out the flaws in a huge way.  I’m sure that if I project this onto a screen or wall, folks will be hiding under their chairs.

My reasoning for saving it into the .swf format was that I thought I might learn from how it was set up in Flash 8 as far as timeline etc.  However, it doesn’t do that.  Try and learn is often a crash and burn endeavor, but at the very least I now have this ridiculous poem in at least a dozen different forms and programs.  In truth, I didn’t go into Flash with the thought of converting so much as finding out that I could by clicking around a bit.  I have no idea if any of this was useful information since I don’t know what to do with the file except that I can now play it locally in a nicer format.  It also doesn’t take three minutes to load.  Except that you can’t load and play it here because I tried that and it didn’t work except to download the whole thing and I stopped it well before the three minutes were up.

Oh, well.

…is done.  And, like most movie productions, has come in over budget at 1.55 minutes and 16.7 mb.  But it does have eight less images, and the new ones are all pretty much themed to the idea of a circle or circular narrative path.  However, I also had to put the text of the poem overlaid on the images, and that, I admit, is where again I couldn’t resist the impulse to do some fancy stuff with fades and zooms.

I wasn’t as pleased with some of the Photoshopping I did this time, having completely forgotten what I had done to the images the first time to get them as I wanted them.  I did correct the sizing of all though so the choppy transitions between frames that an inexperienced movie editor ends up with are alleviated a bit by the elimination of constant screen size changes.

Windows Movie Maker did work a lot better for me this time without anywhere near the freeze-ups that I had the first go-round.  For one thing, I added the transitions in after a large portion of the film was done in segments, and ‘saved’ after each addition.

It’s been a completely fun project.  Now I’m ready to move on to something new.

Crap.

I’m not simplifying; I’m just taking new photos, spherizing them to make them flow in a theme (except for Poe and Jesus who shall remain squares) and I’ve got just as many visuals now as I’ve had before PLUS text overlaid on top.

It’s like being a new writer; you just can’t bear to cut that lovely phrase (my Photoshopped snowball bush) without a ruthless editor screaming at you.  In writing I’ve kinda sorta learned to be that editor.  In graphics, I just don’t have the experience yet.

Let’s see how this winds up.  I’ve got three more verses to go.