3rd Draft- Flash Animation

This animation was created on Adobe Flash CS3 and the items were drawn using the same program.

I created this short video to experiment with different forms of animation. I hadn't used Flash a lot before so all the features were relatively new to me, so I kept the images and story as simple and short as possible. This also plays to my theme of idioms, as I chose "A Leopard Never Changes It's Spots" for the basis. The content is very blatant, which is a leopard walking through the jungle then it's spots changing colour then fading. I wasn't so much focused on the storyline as I was concentrating on the actual techniques and processes involved in using Flash, and the differences between it and other forms of animation.
I found it fairly difficult to animate in Flash, as if I made the tiniest error it ruined the entire thing and the program itself was not very easy to use. I feel I would need more Flash lessons to fully understand how to use it sufficiently. My favourite form of animation so far has definitely been using photography, as it gives me the desired effect, and as I wish to develop each frame for the final product this process wouldn't be feasible. One thing I did like about Flash is how I could create my own characters and alter them as I wished and there weren't any limitations. I also enjoyed being able to create my own background and having control over how much detail I wanted. I would still be interested in creating a longer animation with a more in depth storyline as I would like being able to get it exactly as I had planned, but again I think I would need a better knowledge of Flash for it to be a success. However as I feel my photography skill is higher than that of my drawing ability, I think playing to my strengths would give me the best possible outcome.
However I am pleased with the outcome of this experiment, as all the animation runs smoothly and I haven't had any big problems to face. One small detail that would've been impractical to create is that I wanted each leopard spot to change to a different colour, but due to the way I'd layered and grouped the files, it would've taken up too much time.
I didn't create a storyboard for this animation as I wasn't sure what limitations I would have when it came to creating it. However I did know that this was the idiom I would recreate, and that the content would reflect the title so it didn't need a lot of planning anyway.
I feel even though it was only a few seconds long, the process as a whole was a success.