Jason Levine – Healing People Daily with the Power of Digital Video & Audio

Happy New Year, my friends! Hard to believe it's 2010. As I look back over the last year, it's crazy to think of how many places we've traveled, and how many of you we've seen and spoken with...

In any event, after I returned from AUGXL in Amsterdam, I took the pre-holiday time to reflect a bit and enjoy some non-travel/work-from-home for a change. During that time, I also listened to an enormous amount of music and caught up on the dozens of shows I'd TiVo'ed over the past months: one show in particular, Glee, was a new fave, but I couldn't help but notice the extreme use of AutoTune on all the tracks. This isn't uncommon for today's pop music, but it kinda irked me that here were kids who could really sing, and yet, producers felt compelled to deliver the tunes in that way.

From commercial to commercial, live concert to live concert, even the broadcast of the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert on HBO, I kept hearing this new (autotuned) breed of obviously-corrected music...and it started eating away at me.

My Life Would Suck Without You - A 30-minute ReMake (Auto-Tune) from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

So what's a man to do? Well, those of you who've read and heard my musical rants know that I'm all about the technology, but I am indeed a purist (re: musical snob to a degree) and I *do* like to keep it real in the studio, personally. So I simply had no choice other than to see if I could re-make a popular song of the day (Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You"), do it in 30 minutes from start-to-finish (recording all the instrumental parts, singing a few vocals, and mixing it) and showcase that though it *can* be done, it's not really how I want to listen to music...

Continue reading "What I Did Over My Winter Break..." »

Posted by Jason Levine at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hello, my friends! I'm fresh from the road and home-bound for the next month or so, but I simply couldn't go another moment without detailing the great event held last week in Amsterdam, AUGXL. (special thanks to Hans Frederiks and "the legend", Ton Frederiks for their images)

In short, AUGXL catered to 850 Adobe users, from all sides of the creative/coding chain (ie, from Flex to Flash to Premiere to Photoshop) and gave the attendees a chance to interface directly with community leaders in the region and some familiar faces (yours truly, among others) for 9 hours. Sessions were held throughout the day (including opening and closing keynotes, the opening of which I presented with my colleague Serge Jespers) and following the event, there was a little cocktail gathering where users could continue to talk shop, talk tech, and just 'talk' with each other, face-to-face.
A shot of the crowd

Upon introducing Serge for the keynote (following our colleague Bert Hagendoorn's 'Welkom' message), I made a point to emphasize that it's truly the Adobe Community that makes us *love* what we do. And more to the point: we were there...for THEM, for The Community. So, we were available all day for questions, comments, laughs, shaking hands; open arms to all.
Serge and Jase share a moment on stage

The message was well received, and the vibe throughout the day was one of positivity, gratitude and excitement. Excitement, because I not only gave some 'sneak previews' of the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, but my colleague Klaasjan Tukker also gave a teaser-look at the 'next' version of Flash. Lots going on, lots to see, and never enough time to see it all!
Deke McClelland, before joining him for his 'dekePOD' episode

Continue reading "Adobe User Group XL (Amsterdam) Brings The Family Together" »

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Hello, my friends! Well, I'm sure many of you caught my Beatle-reference in the subject title of this blog. If not, then you need to seek out the new Beatles Remasters (specifically, Rubber Soul) and check out the song, "Wait". That aforementioned is the opening line...and it just gets better and better (all the time!).

In any case, as many of you know, there have been some recent changes at Adobe and as such, a few of our friends/colleagues/team members are no longer part of the 'extended family'....most saddening is that the Evangelist 'team' (as many of you know it) has been dissolved. It's been sad, it's been rough, and I really can't say any more about it. However, in the midst of it all there was some light, as my colleague Paul Burnett decided to whip-up a little video (via JibJab) as a remembrance to 'The Greatest Team There Ever Was' (so I've titled it). It was the greatest team I've ever been a part of, and I'll never forget the incredible times we shared together, times that we shared with ALL OF YOU around the world. It's the Adobe Creative Suite Elfvangelists....check it out, and smile...

The Greatest Team Ever - Adobe CS Evangelists from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

Now, shifting gears...this video recently appeared on MacVideo's "Movie of the Week". It's actually my "Share the Love" demonstration from the FCPUG Supermeet in Vegas (filmed April '09). This will give you a pretty good glimpse at the 'flow' of these shows, and also showcase the true 'integration' that we offer between FCP and CS4. It's live, it's Vegas, and it's me and 1600 of my closest FCP friends ;) Take a look...

Jase live at the FCPUG Supermeet, Vegas, April '09

Lastly, I've received many Qs/comments via Twitter how people can contact (and continue to follow) Rufus. Rufus' Travelogue is still online, but you can find him at his new blog HERE. Be sure to drop by and share some love with my dear friend.

"Wait, 'till I come back to your side; we'll forget the tears we cried."

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hello, my friends! Today we're in Århus, having just kicked off our CS4 Live seminar. As mentioned earlier, we've had capacity crowds in nearly every city, and the response to our integrated workflow (and the content we're showcasing) has been universally well-received.

I've compiled another series of images from the last week or so (including some pics from yesterday's show in Helsinki) so here they are. My favorite is actually the 'taxi' we took from Helsinki after the show. I think the picture speaks for itself...and gives new meaning to the idea of a touring 'van' (and if you've seen the seminar, think back to Rufus' Rock Shack Van...LOL)

Paul, our colleague Peo from Apple, me, Rufus...and the Chiquita Banana Van. Rock & Roll!

Polling the audience, connecting with the audience, and feeling the audience response

Some additional news was posted yesterday, as Adobe officially announced that future versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects will be native 64-bit applications (meaning the PProCS4/AECS4 are the last 32-bit versions we'll be releasing). What does this mean to you? Well, it means great things for performance and workflow, and it also gives you food-for-thought when thinking about upgrading or moving to a new system (and as such, a new operation system, such as Snow Leopard or Vista64/Windows 7). For more information on the move to 64-bit, take a look HERE and HERE (for AE 64-bit news).

Paul in the lounge, after the show in Helsinki. Taken with the iPhone

Capturing a smiley Rufus with the iPhone

Rufus cracks me up on stage...moments before I begin

Continue reading "More Snaps from CS4 Live Tour & 64-bit Announcements" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Greetings, my friends! Writing you from the stage in Stockholm, as we've just kicked off our CS4 Live Tour seminar. It's been a whirlwind week, beginning in Oslo on Monday (immediately following our departure from MAX-Los Angeles), Göteborg on Tuesday, Malmö on Wednesday and today in Stockholm. Great crowds, packed theatres, and incredible interest in cross-media workflow and Tips & Tricks from our favorite applications (which, as some of you may know, the attendees *voted* on the features they wanted to see ahead of time---very cool concept)

Jase on stage in Göteborg, photographed by Rufus

In any event, we've got Finland and Denmark coming up next week (along with some customer visits along the way) but in the meantime, I figured I'd post a few images from the tour so far. I can't emphasize enough the 'buzz' that we've felt in each city--literally electrifying. So, a very humble thank you to all of the attendees thus far. It's not easy to attend a 4-hour seminar at 8:30am...but you guys rocked it. It's all about the Adobe user community---and it's truly been our pleasure to present in your cities.

Three by the Sea in Oslo, stitched in PSCS4.12 October 09

Paul in action, talking about Pixel Bender, Stockholm, 15 October

Paul cracking jokes, and cracking us up!

Continue reading "CS4 Live Tour Fills Theatres in the Nordics" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)