Written by Steven Collier
Adobe Flash has long been something of the black sheep amongst the animation world. Despite its unsurpassed versatility and production speed, its comparative lack of visual quality almost always precludes it from being implemented in theatrical releases, forever being relegated to direct-to-DVD fare. Yet, beyond the silver screen, Flash animation reigns as one of the preeminent mediums for creating animated commercials, children’s programming, and virtually every moving image you see online. While certainly not the best looking animation out there, its effective implementation still requires a remarkable degree of skill, and as such I have long held it in high regard. So, you might well imagine my elation last weekend when I learned that an actual Flash-Animated movie was being released nationally. I leapt at the chance to review such an overlooked medium. Unfortunately, the movie in question was My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks. (Thiessen, 2014)
Rainbow Rocks is a strange animal - a direct sequel to last Summer’s My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, (Thiessen, 2013), which was a spin-off of the ongoing animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Various, 2010-Present), which was itself a reboot of the 1980’s cartoon My Little Pony (Bacal, 1986-1987), which was created for the express purpose of promoting the eponymous toy line. As one might imagine, an origin this convoluted makes any succinct overview of this movie’s plot rather tricky. Nevertheless, I shall persevere. Rainbow Rocks follows the trials of “The Rainbooms” a musical girl group who all attend the same high school. The band members all share a mysterious enchantment that imbues them with magical abilities whenever they play their instruments together. However, when their actions attract the attention of a trio of evil sirens who hope to usurp the powers of “The Rainbooms” ensorcelled Teeny Pop ballads, our protagonists are left with no choice but to openly fight this new menace at their school’s first ever battle of the bands.
From a narrative perspective, it would be incredibly easy to dismiss this movie as nothing more than a glorified seventy-five minute long toy commercial. However, that would be an unforgivable disservice to the animators at DHX Media and their subsidiary, Studio B Productions, who have consistently pushed the technical boundaries of Flash animation to its limit. Rainbow Rocks is no exception and currently stands at the high-water mark of that particular medium.
By Flash animation standards, Rainbow Rocks looks amazing. Its models present a virtually unparalleled level of fluidity and articulation, which makes viewing them a joy, regardless of the context. Couple this with the fact that the entire film was the result of less than one year’s production time, its crew’s accomplishments become all the more impressive. The average Dreamworks animated feature can take five times that long to produce.[i]
This unparalleled speed of production is due entirely to the unique properties of Flash animation. Unlike other forms of 2D animation, Flash does not require its character models to be manually drawn in every frame to create an illusion of movement. Thanks to its entirely digital nature, most Flash character models are actually comprised of a series of interchangeable pieces that when layered on top of one another appear to create a seamless whole. Each of these pieces is mounted on an invisible point of articulation, which allows that specific component to be rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees around that position. These articulation points are connected to one another, creating a sort of skeleton, or “rig,” that provides the entire structure for a Flash model. Think of it as being like a digitized Pantin mechanical paper doll.
Rainbow Rocks is a strange animal - a direct sequel to last Summer’s My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, (Thiessen, 2013), which was a spin-off of the ongoing animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Various, 2010-Present), which was itself a reboot of the 1980’s cartoon My Little Pony (Bacal, 1986-1987), which was created for the express purpose of promoting the eponymous toy line. As one might imagine, an origin this convoluted makes any succinct overview of this movie’s plot rather tricky. Nevertheless, I shall persevere. Rainbow Rocks follows the trials of “The Rainbooms” a musical girl group who all attend the same high school. The band members all share a mysterious enchantment that imbues them with magical abilities whenever they play their instruments together. However, when their actions attract the attention of a trio of evil sirens who hope to usurp the powers of “The Rainbooms” ensorcelled Teeny Pop ballads, our protagonists are left with no choice but to openly fight this new menace at their school’s first ever battle of the bands.
From a narrative perspective, it would be incredibly easy to dismiss this movie as nothing more than a glorified seventy-five minute long toy commercial. However, that would be an unforgivable disservice to the animators at DHX Media and their subsidiary, Studio B Productions, who have consistently pushed the technical boundaries of Flash animation to its limit. Rainbow Rocks is no exception and currently stands at the high-water mark of that particular medium.
By Flash animation standards, Rainbow Rocks looks amazing. Its models present a virtually unparalleled level of fluidity and articulation, which makes viewing them a joy, regardless of the context. Couple this with the fact that the entire film was the result of less than one year’s production time, its crew’s accomplishments become all the more impressive. The average Dreamworks animated feature can take five times that long to produce.[i]
This unparalleled speed of production is due entirely to the unique properties of Flash animation. Unlike other forms of 2D animation, Flash does not require its character models to be manually drawn in every frame to create an illusion of movement. Thanks to its entirely digital nature, most Flash character models are actually comprised of a series of interchangeable pieces that when layered on top of one another appear to create a seamless whole. Each of these pieces is mounted on an invisible point of articulation, which allows that specific component to be rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees around that position. These articulation points are connected to one another, creating a sort of skeleton, or “rig,” that provides the entire structure for a Flash model. Think of it as being like a digitized Pantin mechanical paper doll.
Sheet of French "Jumping-Jack" Pantin Dolls circa 1860s
Albeit, one with a great many more pieces.
A partial selection of the Flash assets used to create a functional rig of a Pegasus. (DILeak, 2012)
Once a rig is constructed, it can be programmed to follow a default set of actions, which can be reused at any time, thus negating the need to ever design more than one movement cycle for any character. As such, if all the animation models are roughly the same shape, a single rig can be used to animate the entire cast of characters. Now, a Flash animator can always tweak any character’s rig to give it unique movements, stances, and quirks, but ultimately they will be limited to the confines of the basic movement range of any given rig.
By now, one might wonder why such an automated, sterile form of animation is even deserving of any attention. And to answer that, I need to go back about 15 years to the dawn of the internet. You see, Flash was originally designed as a program capable of efficiently streaming full-length cartoons over the internet, while still remaining well below the 1MB threshold which was about all early computers could manage.[ii] Flash largely achieved this by utilizing the same tricks it does today: recycling assets, swapping rig components in lieu of animating actual transitions, and reading files as a series of movements instead thousands of individual images.
The difference is that in the early aughts, Flash was still only capable of reliably streaming extremely basic, choppy animations, like Badgers. (Picking, 2003)
By now, one might wonder why such an automated, sterile form of animation is even deserving of any attention. And to answer that, I need to go back about 15 years to the dawn of the internet. You see, Flash was originally designed as a program capable of efficiently streaming full-length cartoons over the internet, while still remaining well below the 1MB threshold which was about all early computers could manage.[ii] Flash largely achieved this by utilizing the same tricks it does today: recycling assets, swapping rig components in lieu of animating actual transitions, and reading files as a series of movements instead thousands of individual images.
The difference is that in the early aughts, Flash was still only capable of reliably streaming extremely basic, choppy animations, like Badgers. (Picking, 2003)
Whereas today, well, we have Rainbow Rocks.
Like all forms of digital animation, the underlying programs that power Flash haven’t changed much. However, the capabilities of those programs continuously increase with every subsequent advancement in computer technology.
So, is Rainbow Rocks a good movie? I would argue that yes it is. Despite the fact that its overall premise makes viewing it unrelentingly prohibitive to anyone unfamiliar with its source material, Rainbow Rocks remains a competent, clever, film that creatively makes the absolute most of its resources. And regardless of medium, or context, I believe that is worthy of real praise.
[i] http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/insidedwa/productionprocess
[ii] https://www.adobe.com/macromedia/events/john_gay/page04.html
So, is Rainbow Rocks a good movie? I would argue that yes it is. Despite the fact that its overall premise makes viewing it unrelentingly prohibitive to anyone unfamiliar with its source material, Rainbow Rocks remains a competent, clever, film that creatively makes the absolute most of its resources. And regardless of medium, or context, I believe that is worthy of real praise.
[i] http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/insidedwa/productionprocess
[ii] https://www.adobe.com/macromedia/events/john_gay/page04.html
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