We Want It All Right Now!

It's been too long since i've had a chance to finish the Time Travel experiment articles.  It has just been an extremely hectic year already trying to finish Hoopfighters, and now have 2 more shooting projects with different clients coming up next week.  However,  If you're and Adobe software user like me, you might have heard the news.

If anything, it's left me in shock.  I was going to post my outrage the day they announced the news from AdobeMax conference earlier this week but decided to just let the news sink in a little and ponder it.  If you haven't heard the news, open up a new tab in your web browser right now, and google Adobe Kills CS Suite.

There's no shortage of web sources reporting seemingly LIVE from Adobe Max conference.  The bomb has been dropped.  But just what does this mean?  Adobe's own Creative Cloud page on their site was my first stop to learn firsthand just what Creative Cloud is doing that is replacing Creative Suite line.  They mention quite a few new features and integration with a heavy ideology around centricity.  For example:

According to Adobe, with the C.C. is obviously... Cloud based.  Not just in file sharing and storage / backup, but in how the apps themselves behave.  You can access them across multiple devices.

To take the "feature list" even further, they're pushing even more 'freebies' in your pocket for the money you'll be paying, and this claim to be able to make everything easily publishable RIGHT from inside their platform.  Adobe wants you to use Adobe every step of the way.

An obvious selling point is that because you're not paying for a single 1-time fee license, you'll get rolling updates.  Today we are all used to getting free updates on a "version" of the software we have purchased a license for.  What Creative Cloud is offering is as long as you are subscribed you will have the LATEST and greatest new tools.  Additional features can be rolled out by the developers without having to wait to release an entire new version of the program and charge you another bundle for it.  I have my doubts about the claims to "never worry about compatibility" as stated in the above blurb, but at least the possibilities of Creative Cloud could mean decreased turnaround time for bug fixes (potentially).

So just what does moving to a subscription-based, cloud-based application platform mean for us users?  Now, keep in mind... Adobe is BIG.  For a lot of businesses that have to retain Adobe licenses moving to a subscription for maintaining software could mean less headache with authorizations and that "scaling" mentioned in the image above.

After watching the live chat with the guys at IndyMogul discussing some of the features and possible concerns once Creative Cloud rolls out, it definitely got me thinking about the subscription platform in a different light.  However, that being said I'm still more nervous than open-minded about what subscription based applications will spell for the future of Adobe, and for the software industry at large.

The immediate concerns are just how transparent will the Digital Rights Management be?  What will dealing with cloud based application launching from multiple devices and synchronization be like for a small shop or single freelancer?  I know there are a lot of different income levels that "freelancer" can scale acros. I personally am at the very bottom of that scale being as I struggle just to meet the demands of my cost-of-living.  I don't own a tablet, a super techy next-gen multi-tool (i'm on an older android phone that barely handles text and calls efficiently), and my workstation is literally my everything.  I work and play on the same machine.

The next big concern is obviously "am I paying too much for stuff I'm not even using?".  This topic came up a couple of times on the live chat mentioned above.

Excerpt from NoFilmSchool article:

Do I need ongoing Internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications?
No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis. 

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you’ll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you’ll be able to use products for 180 days even if you’re offline.

While this is stated, another concern popped up that was discussed on the IndyMogul livechat and popping up on adobe's own user forums and that's the 1 active device at a time rumor.  Adobe claims their software is not an "always on" platform, unlike some companies (ahem, E.A. games). but if this is true then how will the DRM work to check and validate the same account and app are not being used at multiple locations. This obviously leaves concerns about licensing for multiple "seats", and that can quickly become a very deep topic across the range of Hobbyist, Semi-Pro, to small and even large businesses that have to scale accordingly.

So, with subscriptions comes questions, "when can I leave?", "when can I come back?", and "where are the hidden fees?"  I speak for myself when I say I hate phone service contracts.  2 year agreements with early cancellation fees can kiss my ass.  Unfortunately the mobile phone and data connectivity is so much a part of our daily lives now my only options are: do I join a giant phone company and deal with expensive, consistent service; or do a pay-as-you go plan and be forced to use lesser quality phones with shoddy applications with virtually no support, and bottom tier service?

Adobe is in a prime position to perform the same type of business practices that phone companies are notorious for, and that's probably the biggest concern people have with the move to subscription-based Creative Cloud.  Once C.C. rolls out they have to make one hell of a first impression so people don't feel like they're being "phone billed".  I know I don't like paying the $80+ a month just to have internet access on my phone. Using less than 1% of my monthly minutes and maybe 20% of my data cap leaves me feeling bitter every time I have to shell out for that monthly fee just to keep my service active.

Let's put that into perspective with Creative Cloud.  If I want to enroll in the Creative Cloud to get full access to the entire suite of software (formerly the master collection) that's $50 a month (yes, I rounded up).  Will there be an option to roll month to month? If I'm not using all the software all the time can I just pay $30 the next month?  What if the month after I have no jobs and won't be using any of the adobe software at all? I'd prefer not to have to pay a penalty for suspending the account simply because I don't have the jobs coming in that month to afford the bill.  Perhaps we'll just have to wait and see how Creative Cloud rolls out.

There are many more concerns beyond the subscription platform that come to mind.  Obviously the "cloud" has been around awhile, but that doesn't mean the concerns about data security, hacking, piracy, and identity theft are any less of a concern.  Until now, all of our work is primarily (and in a lot of traditional workplaces still only) done at the workstation and saved locally.  Adobe isn't just offering greater centricity and networking potential through Behance integration, but allowing for an easier way to collaborate with others online through shared access. C.C. users will now be able to display their "works in progress" to be viewable by that public.  Adobe is even making self-publishing tools even easier through the Cloud platform itself.

If you've used dropbox at all and have their little application installed on your computer, you have a basic idea of how the cloud collaboration can be possible.  That is, if Adobe is using that model.  Another model is Gobbler's "watch and search" for particular file and folder types that allow you to selectively backup online and send to other users.  Data security should always be concern #1 when putting stuff online.  Just because we live in an age where it's so commonplace doesn't mean it's inherently safer than it used to be.

Now stretch that issue out beyond Adobe's control at the server end, and realize that every device you enable your account on will be susceptible to someone else accessing it.  For someone like me who only has 1 workstation, that might not be an issue so much. I'd still be worried about accessibility at other ends of the cloud, but beyond that, I guess I could say I feel relatively "safe".  Take this situation to a workplace or office where creative competition could drive someone to log in to someone Else's account, and you can see how obtuse an issue this can become if your workstation, your phone, your laptop, your tablet, or super-rad wrist computer were left unattended.

The move to subscription based licensing brings up the concern for accessing project files when your license is not active, and this could lead to some really enigmatic solutions if Adobe isn't quick to solve this issue.  I for one have the belief that if a project I created or completed with software I had a license for at some point, i should be able to open it up even into the distant future if I desire and play around in it. Whether that's for saving out a template based on the workflow I used in that project, or exporting individual assets that never got bounced (if we're talking about video / audio) and/or rendered out individually that could be recycled or stored in my custom libraries for re-use later should not be the concern of Adobe.  I firmly stand against the idea that a valid solution to this would be an adobe "player" that will let you view project files without being able to edit them, this is NOT a solution.

To round up the cloud based storage for accessing projects, what will this mean for large Premier Pro and After Effects projects?  They've made certain to inform on their website that these applications and video production are also under the C.C. banner, but try and look up how the "collaborative" and "cloud" platform will integrate in to existing workflows and pipelines and you won't find any information, yet.  In general, Creative Cloud offers free 100gb online storage.  For the average freelance graphic or web designer that's plenty, but in the video world that might be 1 project at best.  Even a bottom-level freelancer myself the few small video projects I've worked on have averaged no smaller than 70+ gigabytes of data and the largest was around a terabyte for video alone, as an audio engineer and sound studio just the audio projects alone for some of the video projects I've worked on can soar into the 50+ gigabyte range easily if I'm working on a feature.

I haven't personally spoken with anyone at Adobe, but if experience has taught me anything about how companies operate, they like to protect their information as much as possible. So unless the services are set in stone, I doubt any solid answers from Adobe will be made available until Creative Cloud hits.  I know this is all still very fresh and keep in mind the news came just earlier this week.

I still have yet to sit here and sift through all the resources online, but first chance I get I'll be going through the keynotes.  If you'd like to do so yourself, here's the link below.

Adobe Max Online

Just taking a quick browse through it doesn't look like the answers to any of the deep and technical questions about the specifics of how things will work will be answered in the videos, but I'm sure there's plenty of feature goodness discussed to get you hyped up about this new model.

Just based on the current setup alone, those of us doing stuff at a semi-professional level or even hobbyists, may find it hard to swallow switching to a monthly fee.  As long as Adobe has a clean and smooth process for rolling out contracts so we can easily create a paying account and suspend it at will within reason, things may not be so bad.  After all $50 a month in comparison to the full price of Master Collection, (roughly $2,500) is quite a savings.  It averages out to around $600 a year, and at the rate of "version" releases the last few years at Adobe, that's about on par with how much you'd be spending to stay up to date every time Adobe rolled out a new version of Creative Suite if you were buying a full license each time.

Now, as we all start to sit happy and enjoy all the features they've implemented.  This is about when I get curious of how to manage plugins.  As far as I can tell the licensing is the only thing you're paying for to keep software up to date, it still installs like normal software onto your device and runs like a typical software should.  But, what about synchronizing your licensed plugins for whatever Adobe application you're using across the device range?  Those software developers that want to hop on board could quickly start talks with Adobe for switching their licensing schemes over to have Adobe's platform handle the whole shebang, and then those 3rd party companies can offer a paid subscription plan too.

It takes a lot of foresight to make a platform like this work, and clearly Adobe has done their homework.  But how about the rest of the industry, how are things going to shape in the years to come with a major platform like this running the show?  Obviously Adobe isn't the only solution for video and VFX editing, there are others like Autodesk and Avid. Switching product lines may take some re-training and unlearning habits that may have been formed from the particular workflow of the application we're all used to, but the bigger question is what's to stop them from switching to this very same type of business model?

There's an awful lot of potential to bleed it's consumers / users / customers dry through the subscription models and Adobe's move to the Creative Cloud is only the very beginning.  These are all my own personal opinions and concerns, what do you think about the move to the cloud?  Do you think 3rd party plugin developers will make the switch to the same platform?  Is this going to make your life easier or more complex?

Please share this article and leave comments!  I'd love to know what everyone's experiences are.

How to be Pro!

As I type this, I'm uploading the latest batch of samples I've been cutting for this project called Hoopfighter.

This project has been in "concept" for a long, long time according to a close friend of mine who is the creator of the IP.  They've gotten quite a comic strip started online. I'm helping out with Sound Effects for the next phase they're building: a short animated series.  I've been told the plan is to start releasing episodes as early as next April.  Check them out on Facebook and join the following so you can stay in the loop on when episodes are released!

I've been doing an awful lot of documenting my own personal stuff as well as stuff I've been doing for this project just to keep track, which led me to that template I designed for managing field recording sessions with the Zoom H4N.  (you can find it here on my article "Got Zoom?")

Universal Audio has AMAZING documentation and their manual provides a session recall sheet on page 35.  I love my 4-710 D.  In fact, I've used this beast so many times I've lost count (thankfully I keep session logs), but I just started backing up my paper logs back to digital domain and storing them in PDF's along with my other session logs.  Thanks to the power of Photoshop I now have this master template for doing session recall sheet "digitization".  Click on the image below to download the .PSD file.

Here's a few tips on how to edit and navigate this photoshop file.

Layout contains the altered session recall sheet from UA's manual.

Channel Notes contains text layers for each channel of both the top and bottom recall layouts.  Simply double click on the text layer and start typing your information about that channel.  What mic was hooked up, whether the mic's pad or roll-off or other switches or pattern select was used.

Session Title contains the upper text layers,  double click on the "TITLE" layer and start typing out the title of the session.  It also houses the date text layer, and the engineer text layer.  You can change your studio title as well.

Notes area is something I added in.  there's 2 vector lines and a text layer for adding in further text information about the session.

Dials which you can see all the layers of in the image to the right, contains an easy way to create the dial drawing information.  Simply select the hard circular brush (or default brush Photoshop uses).  and make the brush size small enough to your liking.

As you can see above, I started painting in on the appropriate layer.  The easiest way to keep a clean look, is to click once and create a dot at the center of the dial with the brush tool, then hold Shift and left click at the outer edge of the dial to create a straight line from the last "click" you made.

My finished example below from one of my earlier sessions.

So there you have a free Photoshop template, and a basic walkthrough of how to use it for your own sessions.

This isn't all I've been up to.  I've made session time log templates, material checklist templates, Sample archiving templates, etc... etc...  I've spent just about as much time building documentation as I have actually recording and producing audio material!  Imagine that...

Other news, I've been working off-and-on for a DJ friend of mine helping him change aliases and start a new "brand image" building marketing material and video work for his music.  Check out VRTRA on facebook and show him some love!  He's got an EP he's working on right now.  I actually mastered his track "IDGAF (Original mix)".
We've been back and forth with development of the text logos and stripping out a "zebra" design he originally had made by another artist and wants to shift gears to a more edgy look.  Here's a look at the progress and changes I've done just iterating through some design requests.

 Some alternate text banners he decided against.

After a week or so He decided the Zebra head wasn't the image he wanted, but he liked the idea of fractals and wanted them to shape the V as his logo.  I had a couple of issues with this as getting the same way I designed the fractals as BG fx for the Zebra head don't work with text well, so I had to imrpovise.

After some more chatting back and forth and letting him know my difficulties with getting the same geometric shaped fractals to work with the V, I took some more creative liberties to develop some different looks for the V.

Just some super rough ideas for a background V shaped fractal.  I've designed my fair share of fractals with Apophysis and just started manipulating them in Photoshop to get the V look.  But this still wasn't what he envisioned so I took a new approach with the Geometric shape fractals I had created with the Zebra head.

More news to come with several other projects I'm involved in.  Shot video and assisted a photographer friend at a Wedding over a month ago.  I should be getting the footage and some photos to post up for the work we did soon.  Lots on my plate!  Also, if you haven't already, go back in my blog and check out my article on the latest commercial project I did music for: SIMple is as Simple does not.

Stay fresh friends.  As always, I appreciate any and all feedback, so feel free to comment below.  My question to you all is: what do you think o the V logos, which is your favorite? Do you think any of these make for a good logo design for a DJ?

Color me purple...

Getting the last bits wrapped up on the Arcade design project.

I'm hoping I can have this one wrapped up by the end of this week, so that leaves me 2 more days to work on it and get in final approval.

I've also been working on quick-mixing and mastering the 5 songs I recorded on saturday with my client to send out the mixes on Friday.  I've been talking with the client about their upcoming plans and it appears they want to prepare a mix-tape of their work soon, so we'll see how things roll into the near future.

I just sent Steven Hasting an old unfinished project we started last year and he decided to post it up on soundcloud, enjoy!

In the meantime, i've been slowly getting back to sound-design on my dubstep remix mashup of Rob Zombie's music in the "Zombie Apocalypse" project, and while the creative juices are down I've been getting close family and friends who are interested to start reading and giving me feedback on my novel.

Sometime in the near future i'll be scheduling a google hangouts session for an web interview with the developers of NovaCut, a collaborative online based video editor application.  I've made friends with two of the developers and have been in sporadic contact discussing various components of the video industry, politics, and straight down to production methods Neologic Studios and myself employ.  I'm incredibly interested in seeing what Novacut can do to really shift the whole paradigm of video and motion picture production as it has the potential to greatly advance the democratization of the whole industry.

Connecting this tool to some huge DIY and true independent filmmaker communities like IndyMogul

And even the audiences of great youtube and internet DIY channels like
Film Riot

And Freddie Wong

could blow the entire industry right into the next generation of multimedia...

Well, that's my two cents anyway.










Looks like Lauren got her demo reel up online that I built for her.
I'm also going to be pushing to have these open commercial projects closed this week too, which means I'll have more behind the scenes and in-depth looks at these projects coming up online soon!

Pre-viewing pleasures

This is going to be just a quick update as my schedule just got a lot busier with unexpected commercial shoots.

First off.... Holy crap Avengers movie is pretty amazing if I do say so myself!  Got called "the other Captain America" haha!

Last Tuesday I was in San Jose with Harry shooting a commercial for a clothing company.  I'm working on a behind-the-scenes video for our YouTube channel as I'm building the 4 spots.  So expect a separate blog just for that.

Yes those are ninjas dressing.

No you can't touch them.

Can you find all 3?

I spent most of the week editing the 4 commercial spots and wrapping up the Martial Arts event I did work for on April 28th.  As well as prepping a design documents for a meeting I just held yesterday (Saturday) to start a video game project with a private group.  Things are going to get very interesting.

And finally, today I've been trying to just catch up on some editing projects.  Whetting my hands on some Red 4k footage from the ACE rail commercial shoot to practice 4k R3d workflow in Premiere Pro.  I may get around to posting on that one specifically as I'd like to go in depth and really explore everything with working with 4k.

 However, just a little while ago I got another call from Harry to shoot back out to San Jose with him all day tomorrow to pick up a reshoot for some spots I'm already editing, and then shoot a whole new commercial with a new client of which I have absolutely no details of yet.  These are fun times indeed!

Oh........ and a little secret I'll let you all in on... there's a zombie apocalypse coming... Stay tuned for more information ;)

Too much Film, not enough celluloid

This last week Troy and I have accomplished several large recording sessions for a sound effects catalog project I've been putting together for some time now.  We're still very early in the project, but while I've been working on that I've also managed to finish the 11 video reels to run at this martial arts event in Los Gatos on the 28th that I'll be running a projector and managing all the video and photos for.

Plenty have asked and I have consistently told all that when it comes to video editing Premier really is the easiest to adapt to in terms of a fully featured NLE.  Coming from Sony Vegas, which is a great tool even back in the earlier versions where I spent a lot of my early days editing clips together of video game captures for my friends and I doing Machinima stuff, to moving upward into a package like Premier Pro and After Effects.  After the event is over I'll post again with some depth about working on the project.

This weekend I managed to get the major ground work done designing the Arcade top and the sides.
I sent my client a rough template I had built using the vague description he'd given me.

Keep in mind I'm working the template to this design.  I lined everything up in Illustrator, and the edges can be cut to the shape of the top.

The Logo text is just a placeholder to see if he liked the idea of naming his arcade, and the name could be whatever he wants.

I got my client's feedback and am currently working on updating it to the details he specified.  He decided he wants a much fuller "collage" of characters from all kinds of games to completely cover the top, and to lose the logo idea. 

So now i'm just working on gathering and placing as many characters I can.  I may try to break up the design a bit more with some tech shapes that fill in the middle and give some more lines to work with character orientation and placement now that the logo is gone.

Resuming my old short skit storyboard too.  I'm hoping to have this done by the end of April as I'm just working on it here and there in my free time.  The intended running time for the short should be somewhere around 2-3 minutes.

Setting up a storyboard plot in Photoshop from scratch was fairly easy though getting to the organization took a bit of work:

 Each of those master folders has a folder for each cell or frame.

Each frame folder allows me to contain my elements separately so when I go cropping each frame out individually I can just delete the other frames from the PSD file, and import all the relevant elements into After Effects to build quick pre-viz animations with, and allow me to choose what I want to show in terms of aspect ratio, shot details (orange) , and camera movement (blue), or actor movement (green).

Let's see if anyone can guess what's going on just by looking at the frames below:

I'm hoping to get some friends to help put this together soon.  The paid projects come first so I'm working to get them finished so I can make time for these.  I'll try to keep regular updates coming. though I may start splitting the updates into individual project blogs.  As always, feel free to leave comments, criticism, feedback, tech support, links, hot links, polish sausage and just about anything else you can imagine... gosh, I'm hungry.

Quickly Quixotic

I wasn't intending for a short hiatus on the blog but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything.  In the last few weeks I've been commissioned to do some graphics design work for two jobs.

The first is a T shirt logo design for the Turlock Geo club.  The design iteration was fairly simple, and the design itself is actually pretty straightforward: create a globe with a tree and a magnifying glass focused in on the geographical location of the club's hometown.

The idea is to have the graphic pressed over black shirt cloth.  So I rendered out previews with black background so the client could more accurately review.  With the final draft ready for t-shirt press I can start work on the larger, more creative project which is designing a custom graphic wrap for someone's MAME arcade project.  It's really cool actually.

Somewhere in between the graphics projects and getting all the stuff I'll discuss below going, I managed to have a couple recording sessions for a local artist.

I've got a few major studio projects I'm putting together.  The biggest is starting a sound effects and music cues catalog to market to Indie game developers and interactive media.  I'll start sharing some of that once we launch.  However, I did just recently purchase a brand new Zoom H4N to aid in some field recording tests and options.

Troy and I both have already done a few test sessions which I may have a quick video update coming soon!

Contact mics on my computer...

  
The Zoom is pretty solid and I also acquired some cheap and effective contact microphones!  Should make some interesting tests in the coming days.

Between that and the larger order I placed with Sweetwater which should be arriving soon: Universal Audio 4-710d and Art Headamp7pro; We're getting ready to do some serious sound effects field recordings.  I've been putting together session plans and diagrams for it all.

On top of that, we just started our website which we launched this week:

www.neologicstudios.com

Just barely getting my hands dirty with Wordpress and PHP management in Dreamweaver.  To top it all off, the last week I've been collecting movies and footage for a video editing project I have been commissioned to create for this martial arts event in Los Gatos on the 28th of April.  I'm required to build 1 minute video reels of several major martial artists and big name actors that have an extensive and impress list of credits.

Among them: James Hong, Martin Kove, Cary Tagawa, Bolo Yeung, Jim Kelly, John Saxon, and Bob Wall.  There are going to be a TON more at this event, and I'm going to be running the projection system and managing all the video clips.  As I get more work done on these projects I'll post some updates.

Hopefully I can get these projects done fast enough to allow for some time to update this blog more!