The movie above (at
over 300 kb) is too large to download quickly enough for the home page
of a business site like Click as a Flash.
Especially
if you hope your visitors will return regularly — they would soon
get bored waiting for it again and again.
But in years to come,
as more and more viewers access the net via fast broadband systems,
long movies will become commonplace.
Complex movies are
more suited to entertainment websites, though with imagination they
can be used in many ways. For example, car companies sometimes use Flash
movies to reveal product information about a new release in a tantalizing
way.
Long movies are suited
to single visit pages rather than repeat visit pages.
So, using the same example, a car company might have a very simple movie
on its home page, but a complex one on a sub page to demonstrate a new
model. This is because any visitor to a sub page has already demonstrated
his or her particular interest in visiting that page, and therefore
is willing to spend time there. Not so for casual visitors.
The significant factor
about large movies is that they can contain a load sequence (eg the
repeating scene of the truck driving into the warehouse above). Then,
the viewer is kept entertained while the bulk of the movie downloads.
The movie sends a message to the viewer's browser not to start running
the main movie until the full data is downloaded, to avoid disruptive
pauses.
Thus, if you have
an average 56 kb modem, you will have seen the truck enter the warehouse
seven or eight times before the movie starts. If you have broadband,
you might only see it once or twice.
The other trick sometimes
used is to have a "skip introduction" button. When viewers
return for a second visit, they can jump most of the movie and go straight
to the last scene to get to the info or links they are seeking.
To make a comparison,
the Flash movie used on the Click as a Flash home page (which is a simplified
version of the movie above) weighs in at just 20kb!
The best interactive
movie created by Click as a Flash is the Godzorro site under the Turtle
Portal banner — www.turtleportal.com/5_gz.html
The scripting capabilities
of Flash are in fact so powerful that very sophisticated games etc can
be created, with the results only limited by the imagination. (Click
as a Flash however does not provide games or advanced scripting, a specialized
field.)
Finally, creating
complex Flash movies is very time consuming and hence quite expensive.
