Writing on the Mind

Way back on the 1st of October, Radio National's program "All in the Mind" broadcast a show called Writing on the Mind. It is an interesting look at what narrative is in our lives – and can we influence the way our story is told? Michael White is a psychologist and therapist who in the 1970s co-founded the internationally successful therapeutic technique known as Narrative Therapy. Barbara Brooks is a memoir writer, biographer, and lecturer in life writing. Both listen to stories and then fill out the spaces in between. They join producer Gretchen Miller in conversation.

Unfortunately, Radio National no longer offers the MP3 recording, but the transcript is there. I have the MP3 if anyone wants it.

Lee's Duck

Last week and this week I demonstrated the 'Trace Bitmap' feature of Flash.

Following along in her own Flash document, Lee has imported a photo of one of the campus ducks into Flash, then selected 'trace bitmap' (search Flash's help for this feature).


Lee's Duck

The trace bitmap feature traces the colour variations and turns the image into a a number of coloured shapes, creatinf a visual effect a bit like the 'stencil cutout' filter in photoshop.

Lee next created about 10 key frames of the traced duck image on the Flash timeline. In each key frame she has deleted some of the traced shapes in the duck image, each keyframe progressively deleting more of the image. By the 10th frame the image is almost gone.

Then Lee selected those 10 keyframes, copied all of them, and pasted them on a new timeline layer. With the new timeline layer frames selected, she then 'reversed frames' so as to create an animation of the duck fading away and back again. (All of these frame options are available by right clicking selected keyframes).

In the end Lee has a traced image of a duck, with an animated effect of it fading away and back up again. The published animation has been published to her OurMedia account so now the link to it can be used in emails, and displayed in this blog.

Good job Lee.

Dust Echoes - Dreamtime stories animated

Fantastic collection of animated dreamtime stories at the ABC called Dust Echoes
I've added them to bmanimation of course!