Congratulations to Mike Birbiglia, Director of Sleepwalk With Me for winning the Best of NEXT Audience Award at the Sundance Awards. Mike accepted the honor at Saturday’s ceremony, where he provided the audience with some laughs during his acceptance speech (for those of you who don’t know, Mike also happens to be a stand up comedian!).

We were proud to sponsor the NEXT category of films at the Sundance Film Festival, which recognizes and honors impactful films created with limited resources. The films in the NEXT category truly embody the spirit of independent filmmaking, and we’re thrilled to have had the opportunity to sponsor the category.

Congratulations to ALL of the contestants on a job well done. We got to speak to a few contestants during our time at the festival, and will be sharing a highlights video in the coming days here. Stay tuned for more!

Today at the GreenBiz Forum 12 in San Francisco, Adobe announced another step toward becoming Net Zero with the installation of two-200 kilowatt Bloom Energy fuel cells at our San Francisco offices. The fuel cells are expected to provide 35 percent of Adobe SF’s on-site power needs, the equivalent of powering 320 homes.  Net Zero buildings can be independent from the energy grid supply and have zero carbon emissions annually.

Fuel cells offer a high level of efficiency by reducing power lost in traditional energy transmission. Today’s news marks Adobe’s third major renewable energy installation.  At our San Jose headquarters, we installed 12-100 kilowatt Bloom boxes in the summer of 2010, which provide 30 percent of Adobe SJ’s total power.  In December 2009, we installed 20 Windspires, which harness wind power to generate clean electric energy on-site.

With the completion of this project, Adobe remains on the forefront of incorporating impactful, leading-edge clean technologies to our operations in an effort to reduce our environmental footprint. Over the next 10 years, Adobe expects to reduce its carbon footprint by approximately 121.5 million pounds, the equivalent of taking 1,810 compact cars off the road annually.

Yesterday, we finished up our week long trip to Sundance as a Leadership Sponsor. Sundance gave us a great opportunity to not only meet talented filmmakers and editors who use our tools every day, but have great conversations with fellow attendees who are just as passionate about the art of filmmaking as we are. 

We wrapped up our last day with a deep dive, titled “Modern Storytelling,” with Vincent Laforet. Not only did Vincent share some of his greatest photographs and commercials with an engaged audience, but he also gave candid explanations of stories behind each piece of work, tips on tools, best mobile apps to use for photography, and editing techniques. He shared behind-the-scenes making videos of a few commercials, his techniques and learnings, and lastly, how it all come together in the final product. Thanks to Vincent for his valuable time. You can see more of his work here.

Sundance, it’s been fun. Thanks to all of you who followed our journey along with us on social media. We’ll share a few more videos with you in the coming days, so stay tuned.

Until next year…!

Earlier this week, educators around the globe attended a webinar that focused on ways to produce high quality media on a limited budget. The webinar aimed at helping educators and their students produce polished & professional looking media that would be competitive in the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards.

The tutorial was presented by Patricia Cogley, Adobe Youth Voices Program Manager, along with Adam Shaening-Pokrasso, a San Francisco-based video producer and media artist who has been a member of the Adobe Youth Voices community for several years. Attendance in the webinar was free of cost and open to all members of the Adobe Youth Voices Essentials network.

This week’s webinar is now archived online, and we invite everyone to tune in, and to pass it on to any educators or youth media mentors in your network.

You can view the recorded webinar in your browser, and view, save & print the PDF version of the slides used in the tutorial.

To join future webinars as they happen, and to gain access to a library of free creative curricula, we invite you to join the Essentials network. Signing up is easy and free of cost!

We also invite you to learn more about the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards and find out how you and your students can participate.

On Day 3 here at Sundance we focused on gathering feedback from attendees on Main Street. Folks shared with us the best Sundance moments so far, their favorite Adobe products (!), and what the future of digital looks like to them. Saturday included quite the snowstorm, so many thanks to our video crew and all the people who stopped by to speak with us! Check out the video below (I have to say my favorite interviewee was the guy in the kilt who was braving the cold!).

In addition, we have a few special congratulations to shout:

• Julia Pott, an Adobe Design Achievement Award (ADAA) 2011 Animation Finalist, was accepted into the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Program for her work, “Belly.” Julia has created an exceptional coming-of-age animated film. Julia, the Adobe teams wish you the very best at your screening during the festival!
• Also congratulations to Columbia University and UCLA on the acceptance of their alumni, student and faculty films to Sundance. Columbia has an amazing 14 films from their alumni, students and faculty screening at Sundance. Three of the films are part of the Adobe sponsored NEXT Category.

Next up for Adobe at Sundance: a case study on Wednesday with Vincent Laforet on modern storytelling. Stay tuned here as we’ll provide a recap.

 

Over the weekend, students at the Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academy in Redwood City received the exciting news that their film, Angel In My Sky, was the first place winner of the Woz Award at Silicon Valley’s Poppy Jasper Film Festival.

The Poppy Jasper Film Festival is an international celebration of cinematic arts, which includes workshops, keynote speakers, film screenings, and an awards ceremony. Each year, Silicon Valley computer legend Steve Wozniak presents young filmmakers with a special achievement award. Named in his honor, the Woz Award recognizes the efforts of filmmakers aged 13 to 18 in any category of short film.

Angel In My Sky premiered in November 2011 during a gala celebration of youth media at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City. If you missed the news last fall, you can read up on the student filmmakers or watch Angel In My Sky online.

Angel In My Sky was one of two Adobe Youth Voices films which were selected as semi-finalists. Also on the list was the groundbreaking film Deaf Not Dumb, produced last spring by students in London in partnership with Offscreen and Deaffinity Group. If you haven’t seen this amazing film, be sure to check it out in our Youth Media Gallery.

Already an award winning film, Angel In My Sky is sure to provide heavy competition in the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards, to which the film has also been submitted.

Are you an educator or a young filmmaker? Do you know an inspirational young artist or performer? If you answered yes to either question, you’ll definitely want to read up about the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards to find out all the details on how to participate. The Aspire Awards are open to youth media makers around the globe, and currently accepting submissions through April 20th, 2012.

Maybe your film will be the next first place headliner!

Friday was a long (…but I won’t say ‘hard’) day in Park City. It was our first full day to show you the variety of reasons Adobe is at Sundance, one of which is to host two panels with filmmakers about technology and storytelling. We’ve got some snippets of our first panel below – look for the full panel on Adobe TV in the near future. Adobe is also a sponsor of the NEXT category of filmmakers, and we have a clip of one of our red carpet interviews below (more NEXT filmmaker interviews coming up in its own video, as well). Of course, we caught a few celebs too … Can you find them?

Finally the Adobe teams are arriving in Utah for this year’s Sundance Film Festival! Jumping around on the free shuttles (Wow — all free? Yes, indeed. Thanks Park City), finding our way from the Egyptian Theater on Main Street (iconic image below the video), to the Sundance Film Fest HQ, we’ve already met loads of people uber-excited for this year. We met the kind folks from Indiewire who invited us to a party (though other engagements, sadly, kept us from attending). We also met two guys from Canada who, seeing our Adobe logos, lauded After Effects and Production Premium – that was a nice little pick me up for the team. We of course got some footage of that.

Then we made our way over to Eccles Theatre for the Day 1 Screening of The Queen of Versailles where the crowd was buzzing with excitement. Robert Redford kicked off the screening,  noting his vision for Sundance and support for independent filmmakers. The documentary itself was fascinating, capturing David Siegel and Jacqueline Siegel’s story of riches to “rags.”

We ended our night at the Day 1 Party, bumping to some good music and meeting some fun fellow attendees.

We put together this teaser video of what you can expect to see over the next few days – check back tomorrow. It’s Friday morning, snowing a ton, and word on the street is that today is the real kick-off. Come back daily for the next episode, yes?

Is the Egyptian Theater the 1st venue ever used by Sundance? I think it is…but let us know in the comments!

We’re uploading all of our photos over at Facebook, so be sure to check back in regularly. Hopefully we’ll have some cool celeb sightings to share!

One of the highest compliments that we could receive is an Adobe employee who says our company is a great place to work. That’s exactly what’s happened today – on an immense scale. For the 13^th time, Adobe has made FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work for list. We ranked 41, a 59 percent improvement over last year’s ranking.

Given the quality and number of companies considered for this list, I couldn’t be more proud and humbled by this recognition. It’s a direct reflection of our incredible employees and the enthusiasm they bring to work every day. Although Adobe has grown and changed significantly since its founding nearly 30 years ago, our values and commitment to creating a great place to work remain constant.

When I learned about our ranking on the list, I paused to think about what I like best about working for Adobe… I have to say it’s our 10,000 creative, passionate and innovative employees. Read what other Adobe employees have to say about working here on the Life@Adobe blog.

We’re thrilled to announce a call for entries for the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards, from youth worldwide. The AYV Aspire Awards is a one-of-a-kind, global virtual media festival honoring youth who creatively communicate a vision for change in their lives and communities through video, print and audio projects.

Students ages 13-18 are invited to compete in eight sub-categories – animation, documentary, music video, narrative video, poetry/experimental video, audio, graphic design and photography. Finalists will have their work judged by a panel of youth, educators, professional artists and prominent figures in the media world, and their work will be showcased online in the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards finalists page and Youth Media Gallery.

First and Second place prize recipients, as well as audience choice award winners will be selected in each category. Prizes will include software, cash and more all going to the winners’ schools and charity of choice. Dell Inc. and Samsung are co-sponsoring the awards, providing laptops and camcorders, respectively, for prize packages in each category.

Entering the competition is easy – students must work in partnership with an educator or media mentor in the Adobe Youth Voices program. To become part of this program, any Educator is invited to register quickly and for free by visiting the Adobe Youth Voices Essentials site.

As an Essentials member, you’ll have access to groundbreaking creative curricula, webinars and education newsletters, as well as being eligible with your students to participate in the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards.

Stay tuned for exciting updates about the judges, sponsors and program. Don’t forget, the deadline for submitting your media to the competition is April 20, 2012.

Still want to know more? Check out the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards web page, or join us on Facebook to keep in touch with the latest news!