AE drives the NLE decision

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “But in the market that Oliver pointed out, broadcast promo/advertisement Smoke is truly pretty awesome. As has been mentioned everywhere, it takes a minute to learn and gain confidence in the application.”

Absolutely. It took me months of feeling foolish before Smoke clicked for me.

Smoke is awesome at the things it does well, but for the “hybrid of broadcast editing/graphics/color/fx” that you mentioned, I think Ae is still a pretty valuable Smoke “plugin.”

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Andrew Kimery]

Can’t find the link but I remember reading somewhere that there is a trend in the younger generation of delaying buying large items like TVs until they are more settled in. And it makes sense, if you are college age and on the go all the time a TV is a door stop as you’ll be getting what you need on the go. But once you’ve landed a job in the real world, have a steady relationship. etc., having multiple people curling up around the iPad to watch a movie just isn’t as cute as it was as a teenager, lol. Back in the day it was a TV or nothing but now there are more options.

There is also Aereo (https://www.aereo.com/) which lets people stream broadcast TV legally (though they are being sued right now). Basically Aereo has set up millions of tiny TV antennas and when someone signs up for the service they are renting one of those antennas. Only $80/yr for their premium plan which includes 40hrs of DVR space.

[David Cherniack]

Thanks, Jeremy. I think that augers somewhat well for the intended future of the product. Now, if they ever make classical tracks an option….:)

David
https://AllinOneFilms.com

[Bill Davis]

To my eye, the most fascinating part of this entire thread is seeing how people define their roles in the production workflow of today.

Reading it, you’d think that very few people think it’s OK to wear a single hat anymore.

Put these “job descriptions” in a hat…

editor
graphic designer
compositor
typesetter
audio mixer
compressionist

and likely 10 more I can’t immediately think of –

and from reading this thread, few seem to feel they can be seen as just excellent in ONE area any more.

Even Walter, who likely comes closest as a high level design professional rather than as a “working day to day editor” has to keep a very sharp eye on the other stuff, in order to leverage his specialty properly.

And, if you combine that reality with the fact that there is more need for motion content (overall content, not just mograph) in more arenas today than ever before, I do wonder if the era we’re moving into is going to find more value in in individuals that can do more things at a basic professional level of competence, rather than individuals that do any particular part of the list at an extremely high level.

I’m not devaluing expertise here. Just looking at the trends and considering what kind of tools and which levels of “product specificity” – will be MOST valued in the coming decade.

Will it be better to be GREAT at one area and OK at a few others… or will it be better to be competent at a wider range of skills – at the expense of being really excellent at any one or two?

Adobe seems to believe that the path is to provide a wide swath of excellent “niche” tools – all under a single brand with cross-talk efficiency – understanding that the user who trains themselves to be excellent at using one – will be more likely to use it’s suite-mates for the other areas where they’re less focused.

Apple also seems to think the “multi-hat” approach is important as well, but took a different tack, building less complex (but built on extremely high quality output code) tools for most of these functions inside a slimmed down profile with lots of automatic options to get a creator to higher quality more efficiently, at the expense of some of the “deep” level controls that experts value so much. (Story of the color board, in a nutshell, IMO)

It’s the battle about who to design your product for. Fewer customers with deeper needs. Or a much wider pool of potential content creators .

it will surprise nobody that I find more personal value in the Apple approach. I’m not truly excellent at any of the niche areas – and freely admit that. But I’m a solid, competent pro at most, and the fact that X has made it easer for me to get to a deliverable that I’m comfortable with — much more easily and significantly more rapidly — is the primary driver of my comfort.

For someone else, not having the ability to do something that AE does brilliantly is a non-starter.

Interesting to think about in these terms.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] ” But once you’ve landed a job in the real world, have a steady relationship. etc., having multiple people curling up around the iPad to watch a movie just isn’t as cute as it was as a teenager, lol.”

Much truth in this, IMO.

I will note, tho, that the Starbucks story is germane here.

The idea wasn’t the need for coffee, it was the need for neutral meeting space where people who didn’t have formal offices and who didn’t necessarily want to have people come to their homes to socialize and transact business could congregate – that actually drove their business model.

So at some level, the “I want a living room where I can bring all my neighbors and friends inside to watch the big event” is what? What’s the need it’s fulfilling?

And this might sound judgmental, but at it’s base, it’s kinda an individuals way of saying “hey, look at the nice living room I have! It’s a social status thing as much as a functional necessity on any level.

Now I’m not diminishing the need for social status indicators or the value of showing off how well you’re doing to your peer group. That’s been part of human experience since day one.

And I remember being right in the middle of that during my younger family days. Went to friends houses for “Event TV Parties.” It was kinda funny, but it really never worked out all that well, IMO. To “watch a movie” in that setting, shuts down all social interaction while everyone stares at the screen.

Sports works MUCH better, since it’s short bursts of interaction with the screen around plenty of time to cheer and converse, but again, that’s competing with the local big-screen bar and using the tools you purchased ostensibly for your internal family entertainment to entertain others.

Since I have the nice converted haybarn studio, I did lots of “put up a projector and have all my son’s friends in for the big movie party” nights. But over time, that just kinda faded away.

Maybe it’s just my personal perspective, colored by my life stage – but honestly social viewing rituals aren’t that big a deal for me anymore.

When I want social big screen experiences, I’ve got the movies. I can go to the local Irish pub for the NCAA finals and get superb Guinness on tap and corned beef to boot. And Linda and I don’t have to clean up afterwards.

But that’s just me.

Just understand that if you think NLE tech devalues rapidly, wait until you’re staring at that huge screen TV you paid $2000 plus to install in “pride of place” on the living room wall – only to realize that it’s become a hanging doorstop in terms of value.

YMMV.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Derek Andonian]

[Jeremy Garchow] When I do use Pr, I do not use dynamic link. It simply doesn’t work as well as I want it to. It is much easier to keep Ae and Pr separate.

I don’t use Dynamic Link all the time either- but even without it, Premiere works really well with Ae. You can copy and paste between them, and you can import a Premiere project into Ae- either the whole thing or specific sequences.

I like this much better than the “intermediate renders” apporoach…

______________________________________________
“Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[James Culbertson]

[Andrew Kimery] “But once you’ve landed a job in the real world, have a steady relationship. etc., having multiple people curling up around the iPad to watch a movie just isn’t as cute as it was as a teenager, lol. Back in the day it was a TV or nothing but now there are more options.”

I have an HDTV in my studio office. But my wife prefers to curl up in our living room with me and watch TV shows streamed from Netflix on her little 13″ MacBook. We almost never view cable or broadcast anymore, but purely on-demand TV shows and movies. And most everyone I know in the Seattle area is similar (even if they do have an HDTV) in that many have jettisoned their cable service entirely in the same way they have cast off their land lines. But I agree theirre is a lot of variety in how people consume media at this time; options are good.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Bill Davis] “I’m not devaluing expertise here. Just looking at the trends and considering what kind of tools and which levels of “product specificity” – will be MOST valued in the coming decade.

Will it be better to be GREAT at one area and OK at a few others… or will it be better to be competent at a wider range of skills – at the expense of being really excellent at any one or two?”

Like almost every discussion here I think it depends on what segment of the market someone wants to get into. Some areas need generalists and others need specialists. The key is obviously to figure out which direction you need to go in order to achieve your goals.

Valve (the video game company) has a very interesting take creative office structure (all workstations are on wheels for easy mobility, no titles, etc.,) and they look for people with a “T-shaped” skill set (deep knowledge about one thing and superficial knowledge about many things).

Below is a link to their employee handbook which I think anyone here would find interesting reading.

https://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1074301/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

[Bill Davis] “So at some level, the “I want a living room where I can bring all my neighbors and friends inside to watch the big event” is what? What’s the need it’s fulfilling?

And this might sound judgmental, but at it’s base, it’s kinda an individuals way of saying “hey, look at the nice living room I have! It’s a social status thing as much as a functional necessity on any level.”

I think I missed the thread(s) you are referencing because I have no idea what you are talking about in this post. I was just saying that two or more adults cradling an tablet for 90 minutes is not a very comfortable viewing experience hence the desire to get a TV. I’m not talking about throwing superbowl parties or any big event like that but just casual viewing by 2 or more people. It’s a matter of pragmatism.

[Derek Andonian]

[Michael W. Towe] I was lucky enough to attend the San Diego Premier User Group last month and it featured a speaker from Adobe to discuss the changes to the next version.

I was at that same meeting. That demo was really something, wasn’t it?

______________________________________________
“Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Andrew Kimery]

[James Culbertson] “I have an HDTV in my studio office. But my wife prefers to curl up in our living room with me and watch TV shows streamed from Netflix on her little 13″ MacBook. We almost never view cable or broadcast anymore, but purely on-demand TV shows and movies. And most everyone I know in the Seattle area is similar (even if they do have an HDTV) in that many have jettisoned their cable service entirely in the same way they have cast off their land lines. But I agree theirre is a lot of variety in how people consume media at this time; options are good.”

Do you have an HDTV in the living room? Separately the GF and I will watch things on a laptop or whatever but if we are watching something together it’s on the TV (which is in the living room). We like to stretch out on the couch (or one person gets the couch and the other the love seat) so it’s not every conducive to sharing a laptop. Almost everything we watch is streaming, we don’t have cable and outside of football season we don’t use the antenna very much.