Friends of ED’s New Masters books are, unlike their other many fine titles, designed expressly to inspire you. True, you can learn quite a bit from their many co-authors’ explanations of how they achieved a given effect. But the books’ strengths are in showing you how other people innovate, and in the sheer stimulation of being exposed to some of the best Flash work being done today.
      The 2002 edition of the New Masters of Flash has been redesigned and is smaller than its predecessor. There is the usual CD-ROM with Director interface, three QuickTime movies and source code in the form of .FLA files.
      I found the pages of this new edition a little over-designed, as I did the first edition. The grey page backgrounds and the busyness of the layout tends, at times, to clash a little with all the detail of the screenshots and the code listings. But that is a minor matter, and it might have something to do with where the publishers are located—grey, grim old Birmingham.

What’S In This One?
The 2002 annual has a balance of established masters and lesser-knowns equally deserving of the limelight. Yuga Nakamura, who achieved early fame in the Flash world with his Mono*Crafts site, has contributed a lengthy introduction. There are other familiar names here as well. Jessica Speigel of the We’re Here Forums tells us of her own personal inspirations and then shows us how to make a Flash ActionScript and PHP calendar.
      Marc Stricklin describes the thorny path from his early ambition of being an illustrator to how he came to create his gothic angst-ridden project Brittle Bones, then shows us how he ActionScripted its floating animated movie clips. Erik Natzke, well-known from the mathematical graphics-generating scripts he contributes to online Flash forums, contributes a tutorial on using mathematics in animating type.
      Ross Mawdsley is inspired by the grunge graphics of designers like Tomato and David Carson, and shows us how he made a suitably grungey narrative animation on the subject of videophones and communication. Pete Barr-Watson describes provides a tutorial on how to combine ASP with an HTML form to dynamically update a Flash movie, in a miniature version of a Content Management System.

In Conclusion
Fifteen respected and innovative Flash designers from all over the world contributed to New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annual. In line with the evolution in Flash use that has been happening since the first New Masters of Flash came out, most of them make heavy use of ActionScript.
      In this edition, an editorial overview is provided throughout the book with several pages here and there of commentary suggesting how to further evolve and apply what the tutorials show you—Headnotes. I found the two-page piece by Jonathan Gay on how he came to create SmartSketch, which became FutureSplash and then Flash on its sale to Macromedia, fascinating and an insight into how the program came to be what it is today.
      New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annual is not the first book I would buy if I was a stranger to Flash wanting to earn more about how to use it, but it is a good repository of ideas and inspiration from fifteen contemporary Flash masters who all started out the same way as the rest of us. It is to their credit, and of Friends of ED, that they are so willing to share their own inspirations and methods with us.

The Book:

• Title: New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annual
• Authors: Jonathan Gay, Yugo Nakamura, et al
• Publisher: Friends of ED
• Publication Year: 2001
• Pages: 528
• Illustrations: Colour
• CD: Mac and Windows
• ISBN: 1903450365
• Rating: 4

• Slide
• Pollen
• Flower
• Axis
• Depth
• Time
• Regenerate
• Chronometry
• Driven
• Today
• Trick
• Flutter
• Flux
• Talk
• Toys