Although I had used Flash a few times before for small things, this was the first time I ever made a hand-drawn animation with it.  It was also the first time I used a Wacom tablet.  I think it belonged to the computer lab, and I had get special permission to use it, but thank goodness I did.  I can’t imagine how difficult this would have been using a mouse to draw everything.

As the title suggests, this assignment was to create some sort of metaphor with the medium of our choosing.  I chose to do a Flash animation because, as I said, I had never done before but had always wanted to.  The metaphor in this piece is about friendship.  Wherever you go, however far away you are, however long the separation, friends will remain friends.

Here is my original description of the piece:

I had a very difficult time starting this project. The problem was that I just couldn’t think of a good metaphor. One day while I was trying to think of some ideas, I looked up at my wall on my calendar to see what day it was. As soon as I looked at the calendar, it hit me! You see, the calendar has students’ pictures from my high school senior class on their birthday months. You must also understand that my class was a very close one. Everyone knew each other; everyone was friends with each other. A few weeks earlier, we had all gone off on our separate ways to college. Yet despite this, we all remained (and still are) very close. This is what I decided my metaphor would be about–friendship.