RE: FLASH: The best Flash site ever? (A minority view)

[Len Harrison]

If your workday Web surfing is monitored, then Bob Schmidt's post could

cause problems for you. You might have to explain how you saw this. That

shouldn't be too difficult if your job is or includes Flash development, but

would be an insufferable pain. There should have been a disclaimer added. On

the other hand, IMHO, if big brother is watching you so closely, it might be

a good idea to find another employer. I'd think long and hard before

sticking with an organization that did this or any one of several equivalent

practices that equate to distrust of and spying on their employees. Your

choice and your life and your mileage may vary. But if you are raising this

point hypothetically vs. personally, it seems a weak cause for outrage. As

does the "some people will be offended" ploy.


It's true that this site is nowhere near as complex nor as interactive as

the one it claimed to top. It may even be true this is <almost> spam.

However, I think there are some good things here that raise it above a

"design that is quite average and with nothing new to it". The moral outrage

seems excessive and excessively PC. It is even possible that Bob  Schmidt

was actually expressing his honest opinion.


The original site is an excellent and innovative use of Flash which provides

a bit of a facelift to a hoary game genre that has been mined exhaustively

from Colossal Caves to Sierra's variants with many mutations in between and

after. While graphically excellent and a definite treat for those who like

such things, there is a certain heavy slowness to it only partially

alleviated by the anime-like storyline. This quality increases exponentially

the longer you are stuck in the same puzzle. One can imagine a person being

overcome with tedium. Possibly not you, but someone. Maybe Bob Schmidt.


By contrast, the other site is an adrenalin pumper, whether nor not you are

particularly attracted to or excited by its product. It is this very

characteristic that makes it a successful piece of work for its purpose IMO.

It moves VERY quickly. The realization and thematic use of the logo, the

horizontal lines which throw out the text, the font style, the simple but

effective use of transition sounds, and the way the number 5 turns into a

design element, all work together to serve the designer's purpose: here is

the future of Web porn. Heck, I practically believed him. The feature list

pulses by so quickly you  *almost* register the elements but have no time to

analyze any one before the next one moves through. So you tend to just take

them in without thought, believing you will have time to consider it at the

end. Which, of course, you don't, making this aspect of the piece nearly

subliminal. The quick fade-throughs of the three .jpgs provide an

intentionally brief and provocative view into what lies within.


The drum machine loop is undeniably trite, to be sure. Fortunately the work

ends when it does because the loop could not bear another repitition. The 5

vector images at the end of the piece are the big letdown, however. The

designer is trying for a tie-in to the 5 in FF5 when, in all probability the

5 simply exists for the sake of alliteration. There's no easy solution here,

but the road taken is weak and a bit of a cop-out. The figures are static

and generic. Only one of them has even the semblence of existence as

anything but would-be stock art. The designer would have gotten much better

results from any frustrated 14-year-old male with passable drawing skills.

He might have mined bathroom walls for truly original treatments as well.

There are also a number of alternative creative paths to tie-in the 5 motif,

ranging from the obvious to the surreal, including an obvious but surreal

take on the obvious. Each of these would require risk, however. And this

designer, although competant and clever in his or her use of the medium for

commercial effect, is not a risk-taker. It is this aspect of his or her work

which prompted the comment quoted above, and this which keeps this piece

from fully realizing the artistic impulse which so obviously motivated it.


Truly one wonders, though, what there is to be so offended by here. We have

the use of that most ancient Anglo-saxon F word in the logo -- the url

itself is disguised by initials and so will probably pass your big brother's

watch if he doesn't employ a current bad-site list. And if he does, why

doesn't he just screen these? Is he TRYING to trap you? There is a warning,

if you noticed, in the title bar before the Flash loads, so there is time to

back out if you are of a mind to. Other than the repeated use of that word

in the logo, there a three .jpgs of partially-clad women which come and go

rather quickly. That's it for "objectionable" content unless you count the

mannequins at the end. Which you'd never reach if you were truly offended.

The rest is just suggestion and pulse-pumping animation. And not much

suggestion. So why are people so irate? Perhaps even I have underrated this

work. Perhaps it so perfectly catches the ambience of sex merchandising (the

above mentioned weaknesses may well have been intentional) that people react

to the sense of the pruient, even when the substance is not there.


Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?


len harrison

speaking (and thinking) for himself alone, hence sans sig.



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