www.dartfrogmedia.com
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Marc Hoffman was bit by the Flash bug in 1998. It was love at first site and
Flash has been his primary tool ever since. Marc's first Flash web site was for
his company, Poison Dart Frog Media.
This site went on to be featured in
Flash 3 Web Animation f/x and Design by Ken Milburn. Mr. Milburn counted Marc
among "some of the most talented Flash designers."
Marc is a designer, programmer, writer, audio technician and musician. How does
he parlay his skills into a successful career and still find time to play music?
That's just what we asked him.
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So what first drew you to Flash animation?
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I was just making a transition to a career in multimedia and was earning a certificate from the University of Washington.
I loved Flash's crisp, scalable vector graphics and the ability to embed sound and animation in a web page. I probably would
have ended up a Director geek had Flash not been developing at such a rapid rate at just the right time.
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Your artwork is very professional. Did you have an art background before discovering
Flash?
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Well, I'm flattered because I work with lots of designers whose graphic skills far outshine mine. But yes, I did my
undergraduate work in applied fine arts. If my artwork looks good it's probably because a) I take a year and a day to
produce what others do in about two hours (somewhat kidding) and b) I get lots of good design critiques from my wife Tina.
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There has been discussion on our list in the past about drawing directly in the Flash
environment vs importing from outside programmes. How do you handle this issue?
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I create most vector art in Flash. It works fine for me. I think artists who are used to drawing in Illustrator may find
the Flash tools strange to use, but I know plenty of artists who draw right in Flash. It's certainly the quickest way to
optimize for web delivery. On the other hand, for bitmaps I generally use Photoshop because that's what I'm most familiar
with, and it's also what artists commonly hand off to me. When I work with an artist who is not familiar with Flash, I
prefer to receive Photoshop files and convert the necessary layers or pieces to png's which I then import to Flash. Since
pieces often have to be resized, cropped, have backgrounds knocked out, and otherwise be revised, it's often faster for me
to do that part myself rather than send the artist a bunch of detailed revision requests. There are almost always
last-minute graphics fixes in a project, so my Photoshop abilities save alot of back-and-forth during the revision process.
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Headsprout E-Learning Sample
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You earned a Certificate in Multimedia from the University of Washington and
you were one of the first 150 people to earn the Macromedia Flash Developer Certificate.
How helpful was this formal training and how much of it is supplemented by continued
self study?
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The University of Washington program was great as a quick introduction to most of the basic multimedia tools. I know everyone's
different in their learning style, but classes work well to keep me motivated and learning. On the other hand, almost
everything I know about Flash I learned by doing it on my own or by working with more advanced developers and designers.
I think that to work in Flash you're pretty much making a commitment to continual learning -- in other words, alot of
head-bashing, hair-pulling, all-nighters, and hopefully the occasional rapture of success.
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Would you recommend gaining Macromedia Certification to up and coming Flash designers
and developers? Has it helped you professionally?
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I think it's a resume-booster in some cases, but I don't suspect it's played a part in my getting most of my work. The exam
I took was quite broad, and studying for it forced me to learn some areas I wasn't very familiar with. That may have been
the best part of it.
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In such a tight employment market, it seems that a Flash developer can really benefit
from wearing many different hats. What other skills do you incorporate when working
on a Flash project?
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Well, the list is probably endless, depending how literally you take the question. Certainly there are other software
programs I use almost daily: Photoshop, ImageReady, Dreamweaver, Freehand, Sorenson Squeeze for compressing video,
Adobe Audition for sound recording and editing, Microsoft Office for creating documentation, time-tracking, and bug lists.
And lots of utilities including text editors, color-pickers, Snag-It for screen captures, and a Windows installation utility
to create self-installing CDs. I also use my photography skills on occasion, and sometimes my music composition skills.
NW Mechanical
Radiant Heating Tour
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When I work for a large company such as Microsoft my role is more limited, but for smaller clients I often end up being
project manager, designer, programmer, audio engineer, and editor, as well as VP of sales and marketing. And almost always
I have to use creative judgment about motion effects and timing, even if the art assets are done by someone else. I think
my music background helps my sense of animation timing.
Freelancers have to talk to lots of people who have very different degrees of technical expertise and design skills. A
large part of my job is to help the client clarify what they want. I have to educate them about what Flash can do, what it
can't do, and what it can do but shouldn't (grin). Some clients get it right away, or are happy to let me use my own
judgment. Others have to be reminded over and over so they won't have unrealistic expectations. So I'd definitely count
communication skills high in the list of prerequisites.
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You have worked with some of the biggest names in the industry: Microsoft, Adobe and Hewlett Packard.
How did these opportunities come about?
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Oh, you thought my resume was serious about that? Wait, I'm kidding now, the resume is accurate. Living in Seattle has some
great advantages. I have relationships with several of the vendors and agencies that Microsoft and other large companies
use, so sometimes I'm working right at the client's location and other times I'm part of an independent team delivering a
product to the client.
I've also kept up my visibility on a number of Flash and non-Flash related email lists, helping folks out with
Flash-related problems. The Flash online community has a wonderful ethic that promotes helping each other out. I like being
part of that. Sometimes it creates paying work for me, but I would do it regardless.
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You created a Flash presentation for internal use at Microsoft that included highly
complex functionality and navigability. Tell us about how you addressed the technical
issues.
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Well, theoretically a project's timeline includes design, development, review, and revision stages, and they take place in
that order. When that happens, you get to brainstorm all the function, look and feel of the product before you do very much
work in Flash itself. For better or worse, it only happens maybe five percent of the time, if that. The rest of the time
there's usually pressure to get prototypes done quickly. Only after review and feedback do you know what you need to build,
so you redesign alot of what you've already done. This is the way of practically every company in the industry. As I get
better at this, more and more of my prototypes are built in a way that I can easily upgrade them, so I don't have to scrap
the prototype to accommodate feedback and new features. Being able to work efficiently in a very inefficient industry is
exciting, and I enjoy that I'm getting better at that.
With the Microsoft project you mentioned, the functionality got defined mostly at the outset, but was revised based on
internal company feedback. By and large I look at functionality as an exercise in logic. In that project, we were
demonstrating some up and coming technology by letting the user flip back and forth between a human story about the
technology being used and a schematic view of how the technology is put together. That certainly suggested two simultaneous
presentations, so I think I built it as a bunch of movie clips so we could toggle their visibility on and off. This was
awhile ago, but I think we also needed to do some tracking of where the user was, and whether they had seen a section or
not. ActionScript, even version 1.0, is fine for doing that.
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Matman Wrestling Uniform Builder
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Being that your target audience included executives like Bill Gates, did you approach
the project presentation differently to cater to a more corporate audience? What tools
did you use to convey your vision?
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For high-end productions, I'm generally working as part of a team. There's no way one person can master every aspect. And
you need to approach the job with a very open mind and be sensitive to the look, feel, and corporate culture that has gone
into previous projects your client has done. In a way, the bigger jobs are simpler because there are fewer decisions I have
to make.
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It is sometimes overwhelming to deal with a comprehensive subject that covers many areas. How
do you approach a large Flash project?
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My approach is pretty well developed by now. I start with alot of thinking about the project, often when I'm driving or
doing other things. I think about everything a Flash piece needs to do, technically. If I get through that phase without a
major auto accident, I start organizing the specs into areas. For example, internet functionality: does it need to download
well over the internet at dial-up speeds? If so, I'm always thinking about how to manage the rate at which content will
have to stream. Another area is the type of interactivity: if the user can choose to jump ahead at any time, that's also a
download issue, and maybe the content has to load as multiple Flash movies so they can be downloaded in any order.
I think about what things might need to be always present, such as a navigation bar or the two perspectives in the
Microsoft project we talked about. This will determine where things sit on the Flash timeline, and which content should be
in movie clips that can exist simultaneously but play independently of each other.
Flute Player from the
Audio Playground
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Flash is very much object-oriented: whether it's the graphics or the audio or the code, the object-oriented model treats
these things as re-usable elements that have certain behaviors and that can be used in all combinations. Another way to
think of it is as if you're producing a play: you think about what actors you'll need, and what size stage, and the order in
which things will happen, and how to draw attention to things in the right order so it's not chaos.
I think alot about how much visual content there'll be on the stage at any given time, and how much white space. If things
are crowded, the user can't sort out the important from the trivial, so it's time to think about how to show just part of
the content while making it obvious to the user that there's a way to quickly display the hidden stuff. Those are usability
issues.
So that's the functional part. There's also a more artistic side. For instance, what's the emotional tone of the piece? How
busy, how fast? How will the text and graphics share the stage? If we're mixing vector and bitmap art, how can we minimize
their differences so they don't clash -- or do we want to exploit the contrast for dramatic effect? I'm usually thinking
mostly about the functional stuff, but somewhere in my gut I'm keeping track of whether the whole thing FEELS right.
Wherever it doesn't feel right, I try to pinpoint what's bothering me about it, to break it back down to technical
challenges.
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Some clients have a vision of what they want in a general sense, but often it is difficult
for them to verbalise what they would like you to create. Do you have any tips on how to
assist a client in this area?
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It's helpful to have very specific questions for the client, even a form they can fill out. I have a list in my head at
this point. It includes things like what is the audience looking for, what is the message and tone of the piece, how will
it be delivered, how important is it to make it easy to revise, etc. Also I encourage them to point me to stuff they've
seen on the internet that they like, or that is close to what they want their product to look like. I usually invite lots
of client input in designing a project, but sometimes I'll really encourage them to give me more latitude, more discretion,
in creating the Flash. I believe good design can be informed by lots of people's input, but the design itself should be the
work of one person. Otherwise it's usually just a mediocre compromise of ideas without a unified direction and inspiration
behind it.
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The Northwest Mechanical Radiant Heating Tour has the polish of a television presentation.
How much of the content is created by the client and how much do you write yourself?
The content was given to us by the client. There were some modifications along the way, sometimes based on my suggestions.
Interesting you compare it to television, because it actually was designed for TV playback. I would never have used that
large, clunky text for computer-based delivery.
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NW Mechanical
Radiant Heating Tour
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Audio adds a great deal of depth to your movies. What programmes do you use to edit
and record sound?
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Lately I use Adobe Audition 1.5. This used to be Cool Edit before Adobe bought it from Syntrillium. It's not exactly a
powerhouse studio, but it does more than I need it to, it's easy to learn, and it's inexpensive. I used to use Creamware's
TripleDAT, which back in the nineties was about the most powerful program available and it's still a great program, but not
very intuitive to learn.
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What is the Digital Audio project?
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That's a good question. It's either vapor or a project that eventually will be posted on the internet as an entertaining,
comprehensive introduction to digital audio: some basic information about sound, digital versus analog, how sound is
produced, recorded, and played back, and the particular challenges of delivering audio over the internet. The project has
been 95% finished for about three years. Emma Vokurka (vokurka.com) did some fabulous drawings. You can see a few of the
characters in the Klezmer Band piece in my online portfolio.
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The Audio playground is a delight to use. Was this created as an educational tool?
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Not really, more just for entertainment and a chance to play with sound. This was part of my first Flash project as
a student. I remember what a thrill it was when we presented our projects on a big-screen projector and sound system.
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The Klezmer Band
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The Klezmer Band is used as a learning tool. How much of your own music is used in this movie?
I wrote and recorded all the parts, using a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboard. It was a chance to use a
graphical metaphor to control a music mix. I like how it came out. I did something similar at
http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/ed. That piece lets users drag singing heads onto a piano keyboard to create complex harmonies.
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Do you create different versions for different bandwidth speeds (i.e. 56K modem, broadband)
What changes do you make to accommodate for both fast and slow connections?
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It's less common now to develop for both high and low bandwidth, but when I do the difference is usually in the degree to
which I compress audio, bitmaps, and video.
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There is a misconception that Flash is mainly eye candy or used mainly for artistic purposes.
The Matman Wrestling Uniform Builder is an example of how a Flash movie can be used in a
practical way for companies providing even the most mundane of products. Tell us a little
more about this project.
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In this case, my client manufacturers uniforms for wrestling teams. They didn't need online ordering, but they wanted
customers to be able to design their own uniforms online and bring a print-out to a local Matman representative to place
the order. The client can select from a large number of uniform styles, colors, and text effects, so the number of possible
permutations is huge.
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You used dynamic elements to provide the appropriate garment details at the end of the selection
process. How much does ActionScript figure into your Flash movies?
Everything except the drawings for the uniforms and some of the display text was done in ActionScript. All the colors and
user selections are scripted. In fact we can easily swap in a different palette just by changing the RGB (red/green/blue)
numeric values in the code. All the choices are stored in ActionScript. So for example, the user can switch uniform styles
while keeping their most recent color choices. And in the end, the user prints out a color version of their design; complete
with a date stamp, the names of the colors used, the style of uniform, the font and text effect selected, etc.
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Matman Wrestling Uniform Builder
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The Headsprout project shows another practical application to Flash movies: educating the young.
Tell us a little more about this project.
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Working on this project was a good learning experience for me. Online Flash apps weren't highly developed at the time. We
used Flash and ColdFusion to track the progress of preschool children who were using our software to learn to read. The
learning content was delivered dynamically so that we could know which areas of learning needed more or less reinforcement
and respond appropriately. This was software by subscription. We had it set up to give parents email feedback about how
their kid was doing.
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You have a varied portfolio. Most notable is the web site you created for Rick Friend, a pianist
who accompanies silent films. It is very creative and entertaining. Tell us how this movie
came to be.
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Well this was one of the examples where I had full control of the project, with input from the client. Since Rick plays for
silent films, I had the idea to create a movie theatre environment and actually demo Rick's piano music against a backdrop
of a simulated silent film. I say simulated because at that time Flash did not render video, so I had to reduce a film clip
to a series of low-bandwidth bitmaps. Audio in Flash wasn't too good, either, back then, so the original version used MIDI
to deliver the music. We've since changed it over to use MP3's embedded in the Flash. And I've added a jukebox feature so
visitors can hear more than one of Rick's arrangements.
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Rick Friend's Flash website
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There is a brief video segment in this movie. Macromedia's latest versions of Flash have begun
to incorporate more and more streaming elements like video. What do you think of this trend?
I think it's great, although Flash's video rendering still doesn't compare to Director's ability to display
large-format video. So video in Flash needs to be kept small in dimension or it overtaxes the player.
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You have a successful career doing the creative work that you love. Do you get much time for hobbies
and other pursuits?
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Actually, yes. I love being out in nature, and digital photography has given me a focus for that activity. Lucky for me
that hard drive storage is as cheap as it is, since I now have scores of gigabytes of photos of birds and other nature
subjects. I also like paddling in my eight-foot, 17-pound Poke Boat, which lets me get away from everything and do my
photography. Believe it or not, with all my love of technology, I just got my first cell phone. We'll see if that helps or
hurts my ability to be out and about pursuing my hobbies. I'm also the parent of a 16-year-old, which is not a hobby but
definitely an important part of day to day life. Oh, and then there's marriage. And music played with friends (I'm a
guitarist and songwriter). So life is pretty rich, and occasionally I get to sleep (grin).
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Marc, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experience with us.
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Thanks for the chance to reflect on whatever this life thing is all about!
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