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

Hello my friends. Well, where to begin...quite simply: the month-long tour is almost over. ;) It's been an incredibly rewarding and fantastic time, meeting with customers, presenting to thousands, and sharing workflows, ideas, cross-media concepts and the like with the finest users from both sides of the Atlantic... The pleasure, as they say, has been all mine...:P

...but it's not over yet!

So, en route from NYC to Brussels to attend ACF, I decided to shoot a little video from the train. Unfortunately, well, I looked like total crap! (narcissist, remember?) I mean, I barely slept on the plane over here (a rarity for me; I slept somewhat, just not comfortably) and as such, I looked like a tractor-trailer had just run me over. Not that I haven't blogged in similarly tired, greasy states (lol)...but I was also experiencing some plane dementia (ie, just couldn't phrase my words properly!! lol! I'm serious) and as such, I decided to punt the video and just provide some stills. Is something seriously wrong with me...I'm cracking myself up right now. :) LOL. Oh dear... disturbed, I tell you! ;)

Sitting in my 'usual' cabin on the train, traveling to Brussels. I just liked the colors, and there was some nice, natural lens blur happening on this shot too...

Once I arrived, I met up with Mr. Rewis, and we planned out the next few days worth of demos. As ACF is largely Audio & Video focused, this also allowed me to do some showcasing of Audition 3 (having *just* released last week!!) as well as showing off some of the coolest things it does (including Photoshop-paint-and-heal audio restoration! Always a crowd pleaser!) Someone even came up and gave me an audiofile which I promptly checked out, cleaned up, and charged 50euros for...KIDDING. But really, it was cool, and even cooler being able to apply the 'message and technique' on-the-fly, in front of someone, and really make some magic happen. Good stuff.

Anyway, it's always great to be in the Benelux region, for many reasons. First of all, the architecture in Brussels is simply breathtaking. You might remember some pics back in May from Ghent. Similar indeed, but Brussels really has this sense of 'grandeur'...and every time I'm here, I'm constantly reminded of how 'grandiose' it really is...(not to mention that there are preserved 'ruins' from the 13th century, encased in glass, right in the middle of the central square! too cool!) Now, sadly, we didn't get any time to actually photograph all the grandiose-ness of it all...so here's a pic from my window; it's still pretty...:)

I just love the architecture, and the buildings are just SO clean!

Now, aside from the beauty of this place, there's also THE FOOD. My goodness, I mean, if you're going to travel for weeks at a time, there's definitely a pay-off at the end, and true-to-form, that pay-off (in food) happened here.

Greg and I visited a fairly popular spot, again, in the centre of the main square..a place called Maxim's. He snapped a few pics with his camera of the food...I had this spinach and ricotta ravioli (which I'd had the last time I was in Brussels) and it was all I could think about since I arrived. And was it as good as it looked? Oh yeah, baby...

Ricotta-filled ravioli on sauteed spinach, dressed with basil, olive oil, and rosemary. OMG!

Greg & me @ Maxim's...he had the Guinea foul...it looked SO good.

Well, there you are, a brief look at how the tour is wrapping up. Again, it's been an absolute pleasure to be able to present to everyone, all over the globe, and a special thanks to all of our fellow Adobe colleagues from the Geos, all of the partners and freelancers who've lent a hand, and to FAME Music in Amsterdam, just because. :)

And with that, of course, a final pic from today, returning from the venue, hair down and feelin' fly...

So my friends, this will probably be the last post of *this* tour, but stay tuned as I'll be reporting more once I'm back in the states. Still so much to do, with another trip to San Jose in the wings...Oh, and Thanksgiving too!

Until next time,

Blog On.

Posted by Jason Levine at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello friends. Over the last few days, Greg Rewis and I have been conducting workshops and chatting with some of the top designers in the New York area about 'cross-media' workflows...and specifically...What do we mean by that?

After all, that *does* sound fairly 'marketing-esque', and to the faint-at-heart, it may seem rather ambiguous... Well, in short, it's all about people in *all* areas of design & production, leveraging the tools and techniques that they already possess to expand their knowledge and know-how in *other applications*, and, ideally be able to create and design content outside of their usual software comfort zone. This could be a Flash/Dreamweaver expert using Soundbooth to fix audio and generate XML cuepoints in FLV files; this could be traditional Print Designers using Photoshop CS3 Extended and After Effects to build 'moving' variations of their static creations, via Puppet Tool and Vanishing Point Exchange, or even the traditional Video Editor using SWF and FLV through Premiere and After Effects to bring their videos to the web, to everyone, everywhere.

In short, our first gig for members of AIGA turned out to really be a fantastic one! I'll tell you, if you want interactivity (and you ask for it)...in New York...you GET it! This highly-influential group of mixed designers (web & print) along with some modern editor/compositor types all asked the right questions, and naturally, got the answer from us. We were truly SO pleased with the Q&A that we let it continue long after the 4-hour session had ended.

Thanks to everyone at Noble Desktop, one of our training partners, for hosting the event. We look forward to evangelising and inspiring others in the future. And, if you're looking for some real-deal expert CS3 training in the greater Manhattan area, check them out!

Following the AIGA event, Greg and I spent some time with some of our design customers and another well-known web-community figure, Robert Hoekman, Jr.. Some of you may remember Robert from his recent appearance at MAX Chicago. In any event, hanging and chatting about cross-media, this just got us all revved up for *the next* event, FOWD the following day. Tomorrow, we'll be conducting two, 3-hour sessions on Cross-Media Workflow and Production, similar to the one for AIGA, but slightly modified, and with some different materials. :) (after all, we're always looking for new content to showcase!)

So, having said that, I decided to shoot some photographs today, and just experiment inside Photoshop CS3. As Greg showed off at Noble the other day, we've been doing A TON of work with Camera Raw, and *really* evangelizing the beauty of working in this truly 'hi-def' still medium. However, one thing that I really wanted to test was the Auto blend/Auto Align in PSCS3. Specifically, without any sense of tripod, or for that matter, keeping things in proper perspective. I basically took a bunch of shots in Times Sq, pivoting on one foot, and here's the three that I took...(oh, and let's not forget: a lot of these 'light boards' are CONSTANTLY CHANGING!!)

The 3 'raw' shots; notice the alignment...potential stitching nightmare, eh?

But, with the power of Photoshop CS3, Auto Align (auto & perspective) and Auto Blend, I was able to create the Panorama that I wanted to showcase. Granted, I didn't do *anything* else to this, and as you can see, the originals would have seemed 'virtually impossible' to stitch together. There is actually one little artifact that I noticed (which I left..feel free to call it out)...but once again, (a) this could be healed or cloned out easily; (b) the entire stitching process took about 10 seconds. Changing forever the way we think about working with multiple photos...

The finished Panorama, sourced from *really poorly shot*, hand-held, multi images

Simply amazing, and again, I would have thought the source was totally unusable. Crazy.

So, until next time, when we'll be heading off to the Netherlands to do another big Audio/Video Trade Show, and more...

Don't I look mysterious...and cold! lol

Blog on, everyone.

Posted by Jason Levine at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well my friends, today marked the final day of the Nordic Creative Freedom tour, finishing up in Helsinki. We had a fantastic turn-out today, and I was once again struck by the number of attendees who:

(a) are already working with some type of HDV or high-def media format;
(b) were already engaged and turned-on about the necessity for mobile content delivery; and
(c) were still unaware of some the great new applications and production workflows that can be achieved within CS3 Production Premium!

So, in short...just a great seminar, great Q&A, and from what I gathered after the presentation, some very nice feedback overall (people really told me that they 'learned something' today. Excellent.

I squeezed A LOT of material into the 3-hour slot (entirely workflow based, showcasing around 9 applications) and people really seemed to get the message. So again, thanks to all who attended in Helsinki. We look forward to returning in late January. And just remember..you can ALL do this stuff!

Following the seminar, we decided to have a 'fun' night before departing for New York tomorrow (as AIGA and FOWD begin next week). As such, Greg had remembered this really awesome 'garlic' restaurant in downtown...a place he had been to nearly 15 years earlier. Well, needless to say, it was still there..and the food simply kicked A*se!!

The Infamous Garlic Restaurant of Helsinki

Now, just to be clear...we're talking garlic EVERYTHING! Garlic Aioli, Garlic Creme Soup, Garlic Potatoes, Garlic Smoked Tenderloin, Garlic Schnaps (oh yes) and even Garlic Beer! OH YEAH..Garlic beer, baby! Seems strange, but really, it tasted so-o-o good. Refreshing even. Granted, and it goes without saying; I really do feel for the people who have to sit next to us on the plane to New York tomorrow. Oy!!

Anyways, the dinner was fab, I was even talked into doing a couple of 'traditional' Helsinki drinks (best left unmentioned...lol) and we managed to capture quite a few snapshots and video during the evening...

Greg, arriving at the Garlic Restaurant, "See! I told you it was here!" Photo courtesy of Garazi

A moment from the dinner table (and the garlic is flowing...Phew!)

Jason & our Finnish Adobe colleague, Mikael

Jase & Greg...wind-blown again, but loving Helsinki @ night!

Naturally, the two south-western desert cats manage to sniff out the 'Leningrad COWBOY Bar'...lol. Photo couresy of Garazi

So, I hope that provided a little insight as to this fun-filled evening. Thanks ever so much to our friend and colleague Mikael for being such a wonderful host whilst we were in Finland.

And now my friends, with a garlic-haze surrounding my body (OMG...there is some serious 'garlic vapor' happening here; and don't even get me started about potentially belching...Oy again)

Until next time...(odd that this Garlic evening is occuring *the day after* Halloween, eh? lol)

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)