Well, for a first timer, you need about a month for a minute long cartoon if you want anybody to care about it. It is exceedingly difficult. For example, the creator of the "Madness" series spends around 700 hours for each short film. Thats 5600 hours. For 70 minutes.
Maybe you can give him some general workflow information on how to do a simple scene with background and some character animation. (I still don't like Flash for interfaces, but this is a use of Flash I can live with).
It's been quite a while since I last used Flash to do that but I can give you a very rough overview how we went about it.
We first created a rough storyboard for what we wanted to create.
Then we identified the individual assets needed: Backgrounds, characters, objects, voice, music and so on.
We produced the final voice and music first, since those have a big impact on the script. All actions must be synchronized to them. For characters and backgrounds we created dummies.
We basically drew notes on what was supposed to be where in the backgrounds while we were doing the animation so that in the final renderings everything would fit in with the foreground animation.
The character animation was done by drawing each character from multiple perspectives, scanning, cleanup in Photoshop and finally tracing in Flash. Each "bone" was created separately, so we had one part for the upper arm, lower arm and so on and so forth.
We created separate clips for each character movement like "lifting arm", "standing up", "walking" and so on.
And finally we put it all together in one movie, synchronized it with voice and music and updated the backgrounds to the final version.
There's a whole lot of work you have to do in preproduction to create an animated cartoon. (as hansschmucker mentioned; character design, backgrounds, storyboard, script, ect.)
I have used Flash for 2 different styles of animation. I usually do frame-by-frame. That one takes longer, but is simple to understand. To do frame-by-frame animation in Flash, you can draw separate pictures onto blank keyframes. To trace images in Flash (to see what the character is doing on the frames before and after) you can turn on the onionskin option.
Or, you can use Flash for tweening. That just involves making the character out of different body parts and moving them around using motion tweens or shape tweens.
I suggest you have a look at some online tutorials, and read through the help topics that come with Flash. The thing about animating is that everyone works differently, and the best way to learn is by experimenting.
Good luck!
P.S. StLouisRibs is right... animation takes a really long time! In fact, I spent 5 and a half hours yesterday animating in Flash and got 2 seconds done. I'm not trying to scare you, you'll just need to be prepared!
I don't think actionscript really matters for animating, outside of adding Play buttons at the start of the movie and suchlike. I guess you could use AS for particle effects, but it's far from necessary.
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What do you want to know?
Actually, game. I just made one. Or at least one that was complete enough to submit on Newgrounds.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/356094
It's been quite a while since I last used Flash to do that but I can give you a very rough overview how we went about it.
We first created a rough storyboard for what we wanted to create.
Then we identified the individual assets needed: Backgrounds, characters, objects, voice, music and so on.
We produced the final voice and music first, since those have a big impact on the script. All actions must be synchronized to them. For characters and backgrounds we created dummies.
We basically drew notes on what was supposed to be where in the backgrounds while we were doing the animation so that in the final renderings everything would fit in with the foreground animation.
The character animation was done by drawing each character from multiple perspectives, scanning, cleanup in Photoshop and finally tracing in Flash. Each "bone" was created separately, so we had one part for the upper arm, lower arm and so on and so forth.
We created separate clips for each character movement like "lifting arm", "standing up", "walking" and so on.
And finally we put it all together in one movie, synchronized it with voice and music and updated the backgrounds to the final version.
I have used Flash for 2 different styles of animation. I usually do frame-by-frame. That one takes longer, but is simple to understand. To do frame-by-frame animation in Flash, you can draw separate pictures onto blank keyframes. To trace images in Flash (to see what the character is doing on the frames before and after) you can turn on the onionskin option.
Or, you can use Flash for tweening. That just involves making the character out of different body parts and moving them around using motion tweens or shape tweens.
I suggest you have a look at some online tutorials, and read through the help topics that come with Flash. The thing about animating is that everyone works differently, and the best way to learn is by experimenting.
Good luck!
P.S. StLouisRibs is right... animation takes a really long time! In fact, I spent 5 and a half hours yesterday animating in Flash and got 2 seconds done. I'm not trying to scare you, you'll just need to be prepared!
uh... i fixed it...
i'll get started on that tweening right away!