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

Hello, friends! After an extremely busy week, I'm now back at home, able to reminisce about the last few days in New York, presenting at the NBS-AERho convention. In short, this year (like the past several) proved to be a truly exciting, enlightening, and wonderful experience. Having conducted multiple seminars on everything from Photoshop CS4 to Production Premium, Audition 3 for Broadcast and even a separate class on how to 'teach' CS4 (entitled, "Shortcut to Brilliant Futures") the feedback and responses were overwhelmingly positive (with lots of praise and thanks) but also very telling...both students and faculty want to know more about CS4; and the more (training/tips-tricks) we can give them, the better! And clearly, being there in person, shaking a hand and interfacing with the attendees---that's what really 'solidifies the deal' (as was told to me by several of the students and faculty).

A brief look at my final session; many taking notes; many still standing

This was most evident in my Audition for Broadcast class, where I took the students (and attending professors) through 75 minutes of intense 'Digital Audio' 101/102, covering basics in great depth (and getting my full 'audio-geek-mode' into high-gear!) Setting compressors, using Analyze Statistics, understanding RMS Normalizing vs. Peak Normalization, reading meters...it was fab, and extremely well received. Naturally, I topped off the session with some more advanced audio restoration techniques, and you had a standing audience at the close. With many great questions, contact info shared, and new Twitter followers, it further proved that the Adobe communities continue to grow, to evolve, and our presence (on the road), at events like these, truly makes all the difference.

I once again have to thank all of the organizers of NBS-AERho (you know who you are), and I do want to congratulate the winners of the Suite raffle (yes...we donated both a Design & Production Premium Suite, along with a copy of Audition 3). Let the great content start flowing...

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hello, my friends. I've just finished presenting a CS4 Production Premium 'mega session' for attendees of the NBS-AERho Convention here in New York. With a mere 3-hours to cover 'everything', I zipped through workflows and time-saving techniques (along with top new features) to really provide some 'wow factor' for the students and faculty.

Much like at CBI last week, I was quite intrigued to see that 75% of those present still hadn't seen CS4, so it was truly a pleasure to be the one to 'surprise' them with it all! I saw lots of people taking notes, but after three solid hours, we didn't do much Q&A as I think it was a matter of high-speed information overload! ;) As far as 'tech afflictions' go...that's one of the better ones to have! But as always, the usual suspects (ie, FCP XML Import into Premiere, RED 2k/4k workflow, and OnLo) proved to be highlights, with lots of great reactions and good in the aisles commentary.

I'll be sure to report again over the next few days. A big thanks to all of the organizers, especially Dr. Bruce Mims, Jim Wilson, Dr. Paula Briggs and Tiffany Engler, for always welcoming me with open arms and giving me the best theatre in the venue ;)

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello, my friends! Today marks the final day of the CBI/CMA broadcast education convention, here in New York City. I'll be conducting three more seminars today, a 'mega-session' overview on Production premium (2 back-to-back sessions, actually) and a deep-dive into Premiere Pro and the RED Camera workflow (along with some special added bits, like FCP XML import).

As always, it's been a great turnout and I simply love doing this convention. It occurred to me that this is my 6th or 7th year attending, and because of that, there are always many familiar (faculty) faces, which makes returning to a show like this, ever more special. ;) (I'm so sentimental, eh?)

I realized this morning, however, that I hadn't snapped any photos. That being said, I had promised to post a few additional pics from the Toca Me conference, last week in Munich. My good friend, Marc Thiele, was in the audience and behind-the-lens to capture a few additional glimpses of the 1100-strong crowd of top european designers. Thanks again, Toca Me. It was a true pleasure being there.

The organizers of Toca Me, Thorsten, Nina & Ron, intro the first act, Strukt

Telling the stories of my sound-designer past

A beautiful, naturally-lit shot of the audience

Can you FEEL the POWER of INSPIRATION??!!!

This is just an outtake from our Nordic Tour, last month in Stockholm

I'm off to San Francisco tomorrow, joining the rest of the Evangelist Team, as we're all in the studio this week shooting a new season of our respective Adobe TV shows. We're shooting in a newly-constructed studio, so it should be a great deal of fun, and will hopefully provide some good pics for the blog.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings, my friends! Well, though it seems like MAX '08 has just ended, we're already in the process of planning for MAX North America 2009 --- and we want your input!

If you've got any ideas for sessions, labs, or perhaps you'd like to speak at MAX, we'd really love to get your ideas and feedback. This year's gathering will be held in Los Angeles, 4 - 7 October, so there's lots of time for planning; but in many ways, it's right around the corner ;)

Here's a few links where you can submit ideas. At the moment, the balance of technical sessions versus creative sessions is heavily weighted on the tech side; so if you'd like to see more 'creative' sessions (and this includes all different types of workflow sessions involving video, audio, design + web, flash, AIR, etc) then please submit some concepts. We'd love to hear from you...

Post A Session or Lab Idea

The Official MAX 2009 Site

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello again, my friends! I'm writing this, having just returned from the final day at CeBIT in Hannover. Not surprisingly, though the show ended at 4pm today, the Intel Pavilion (where we presented) was still packed with people. Crazy stuff, indeed...and it's Sunday! The inquiries continued to be quite consistent: what are the benefits of the 64-bit OS (Vista), and can I see some renders and other operations with the Intel Core i7 chip? We put these machines to the test, and customers were equally impressed and wowed by the result.

(all photos by Miriam Merkel)

Jase & Ruf go head-to-head with performance tests, last day @ CeBIT

As you may have read, there are several articles floating about, detailing the benefits. I mentioned a few things in my previous post...but since I've launched, re-launched, and presented on these machines countless times over the last few days, I thought I'd share a few experience tests that I did. Before that, however, here's a little group snapshot of 'the gang'...

From Left: Rufus, Jase, Jonny Klasson (Intel), Sven Doelle, Sven Brencher

First and foremost: launching of applications. Now, these systems were equipped with an SSD drive (80GB) which housed the OS and applications. The speed gains for 'launching' can certainly be attributed to the solid state drive, but it's really QUITE astounding. In short, Premiere Pro launched in no more than 4.5 seconds. 4.5 seconds!! I mean, it's unreal. I did this on all systems (each had the same configuration) and each system reported the same. After Effects was no different; no more than approximately 5 seconds. Time-saving? I mean...COME ON! It was almost 'silly' how quick the apps launched.

Jase & Ruf share a laugh, as Ruf created some freaky 3D heads in PSCS4

Second: Rendering RED & Panasonic P2 Footage from Media Encoder and/or Render Queue: Let's start with P2. I took the Double-Identity trailer that we've been showing and exported that through the Media Encoder as H.264 MP4. Keeping the native frame size (960x720), I was able export a 56 sec timeline in approximately 23 seconds. Yeah. That's what *I* said!

As for RED, I created a 1 minute timeline. I was working in 2K, dynamically linked into AE and rendered a 2K H.264 Quicktime out of the Render Queue. There were several clips that had Fast Color Corrector, along with a few dissolves. The one-minute clip at 2K res took approximately 3 minutes to render. OMG! I mean...Holy Cow. The one-two punch combo of Intel Core i7 + Windows Vista 64 was simply astounding. Truly. Production Premium CS4 never looked so good. And using multiple dynamic links was just not an issue. And the real-time aspects? Yeah..crazy. And, with Apple's recent announcement of the new Mac Pros sporting next-generation Intel architecture inside, it's looking good on both OS fronts. Very good, indeed. ;)

Sven Doelle delivers the message of CS4 & Intel Core i7, while Sven B. presents

A serious Sven Brencher, during some benchmarking tests

The last stage show @ CeBIT 2009...and still packed

So my friends, I'll be posting more pics from the Toca Me conference within the next few days. It's hard to imagine that I'm going home tomorrow, only to head back out to New York on Saturday; but it won't be long until the entire team is back together again for a brief moment in San Francisco. For what, you ask? AdobeTV taping (new series, new stuff). Stay tuned.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Greetings, my friends! I've just returned from an incredible, whirlwind kind of day! The Toca Me Design Conference was held at the Reithalle in Munich, catering to over 1100 designers from all across Europe. Their theme this year was 'Hit By Inspiration'...a rather fitting tagline, especially considering my recent blogpost on a similar topic. ;)

In any event, I woke @ 6:30am, left @ 8:30, flew by 11:00 (delayed), set-up at 1:30, on-stage @ 4:15, and out the door by 5:00pm, heading back to the Munich Airport (where I was delayed again) and then back to Hannover. Phew!

Unlike *other* conferences, this was not about 'demoing', and more about 'demo reel'. Instead, I presented a whole series of materials that I'd created (including some of the Johnny Encore videos that we did, along with some music and scores that I've composed) to really emphasize the 'inspiration' concept through being a sound designer, as well as the creative freedoms of being someone deeply involved with 'cross-media'. I even whistled, live, the original melody from the Evangelist Theme (telling the story of how it was created). Most importantly, however, it was showcasing cool stuff in front of some of Europe's most hip designers...and that's what made the show literally 'rock' (I was in full-kick, full-scream, full-on mode today! ;)

A big thanks to everyone at Toca Me who hosted the event; it was truly a pleasure to be a part of it. I hope to receive some pics taken by a few Twitter friends from the show, so stay tuned for those. In the meantime, here's a few that I took with the iPhone, before presenting...

The crowd enters before the start of my session

A view from the very back of the Reithalle, stitched from 3 pics in PSCS4

And such is the life of a traveling Adobe evangelist! Tomorrow, it's back to business for the last day of CeBIT with Rufus, and then back to the US on Monday morning.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hallo, meine Freunde! Today marks the end of Day 4 out of 6 at CeBIT, here in Hannover, Germany. If you're unfamiliar with this show, CeBIT caters to over 4,000 exhibitors from all over the world, presenting their digital solutions creative innovations. Myself, along with Rufus, Sven Doelle, and our pal Sven Brencher have spent the past four days presenting at this show, with a large focus on emphasizing the power and performance of CS4, utilizing the Intel Core i7 Processor - Extreme Edition. In short, there's no doubt that a quad-core system with 8 threads can really make things like RED Camera workflow look AMAZING; the performance, real-time capabilities, and processing power of this chip have been astounding to both myself, Rufus, and especially our customers. Render times, Dynamic Links, using Adobe Media Encoder, even processing functions like Auto-Align and 'load into Photoshop Layers' are astoundingly fast.

Couple that with Photoshop CS4 in 64-bit (under Windows Vista 64) and leveraging Premiere Pro and After Effects CS4 (already architected for 64-bit) and you've got yourself a pretty sweet set-up, and a very compelling series of stage shows.

In short, it's been a real pleasure being part of this event as Adobe representatives in the Intel Pavilion. With consistent standing crowds and an obvious desire from the attendees for information about speed/performance and how that can affect their work with Adobe apps, we're definitely in the right place, at the right time.

I'm hoping to report a little more when the show ends, but tomorrow I'll be heading out to Munich for the day, to present at the Toca Me Design Conference. Should be great, and I'm sure to have a few stories to tell upon my return tomorrow evening. Sunday, it's back to the show floor for the final day, and then home...for a bit!

Here's a few snaps that our fellow Adobe colleague, Sven Doelle captured with his iPhone...

Jase shows off real-time RED @ 2k with standing crowd

Rufus demonstrates and wows with the power of Photoshop and InDesign CS4

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)