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

Hey there, friends! Well, it's hard to believe that August is half-over, and in approximately 3 weeks, I'll be in The Netherlands, reprising my usual 'evangelical' role at IBC in Amsterdam. Immediately following that, it's 'hit the road' time with Greg Rewis and Rufus Deuchler, as we reprise our 'Masters Tour' from last year, visiting cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland along the way.

However, before I get to the full tour-schedule details, I wanted to let you see some of the additional bits & bobs that I've been working on, all of which will continue to become parts of the materials we'll be showing on tour. As mentioned, we've created a new series of assets based around 'Greg's Rock Shack' (some of this has been featured on AdobeTV, and that's one of the reasons why we created the Chip Hanna music video). Well, I recently shot an interview with Chip and this too will become a 'featured' item on tour.

Now, interviews by themselves may or may not be interesting to you; but what *is* interesting is that we once again had 'zero' budget to work with, and basically had to think quickly and creatively to make something that looked good. Shot on my (painfully old, but still rockin') Sony PC330, it's truly a lesson in less-is-more, setting up a shot, reasonable natural lighting, and working with the tools you have.

Chip in the Studio; a still frame captured directly from the DV source thru OnLo CS4

Thanks to the magic instilled in me by my friend and colleague 'Magic Max Hagelstam', I was able to shoot something on DV, and then dress it up with some color/noise correction & looks (and well as audio restoration) to produce something that looked more pro, more stylized, and anything *but* DV. The frame above represents the 'before' shot; here's the after with all the bells and whistles applied (including a nice lower-third graphic from Rufus)

Here is the post-processed frame, with Magic Bullet Looks and graphics applied

In any case, I can't wait to start showing-off all this cool stuff we've been doing, so without further adieu, here's the (abbreviated) schedule of events so far. More details to come...

September:
10 - 15 IBC, Amsterdam
16 - 25 Masters Tour Germany, Austria, Switzerland

October
5 - 8 MAX Los Angeles
12 - 23 Masters Tour, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark
28 - 30 CBI Fall Conference, Austin, TX

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, friends! Well, it's been a bit too long since my last post, but things have been cooking, and all I can say is...machine rebuilds take too much time! LOL. In the last few weeks (since finishing the Chip Hanna video), I've built and re-built about 4 different systems, including transferring several Terrabytes of data back and forth, cleaning up literally dozens of projects, and prepping for another series of Adobe TV (which will likely feature the CH content, and a complete breakdown of the multicam edit process).

In any case, I've now arrived in the UK, where my fellow colleague Michael O'Neill and I will visit with several Design/Film Universities, going over the entire Cross-Media and Production Workflow, including heavy emphasis on our Avid and FCP Integration (which is now in full-force, thanks to the recent Premiere Pro 4.1 update).

Mikey & me at Jamie Oliver's "15", morning of arrival, Newquay, UK

In any case, we've also got a few visits with some of our broadcast partners, and on Thursday evening I'll be presenting at the Final Cut Supermeet at the Kensington Conference Centre in London. This is the first-annual FCPUG meet in London, so it should be extra-special for all who attend. Please be sure to stop by our table (where Mikey and I will have laptops setup for demo purposes) and say hello.

For now, I'm off to do a few Connect presentations, and then we'll continue the process of re-building Michael's MBP (seems to be a theme this month!). And by the way, there are several new episodes of Short & Suite up on Adobe TV. Here's one on Normalization/Volume Matching and level techniques in Soundbooth CS4.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Hello, my friends! Well, it's been an extremely packed 2 weeks, with LLB ending last Friday in Stockholm, and then a quick hop over to the Netherlands to begin a series of VAR/Freelancer training sessions, as well as the 'big' show, MultiMania '09 in Kortrijk, Belgium. Check out me and Max on the cover of MONITOR Magazine

During the brief stay in Amsterdam, I spent some time with several of our top freelancers, VARs, and additional production/design studio cats, going over the new workflows in Premiere Pro 4.1 (soon to be released) as well as emphasizing tips & tricks around our 'Everyday Timesavers' messaging. These sessions proved to be really informative for both me and the attendees, and there were many discussions about workflow/integration with Premiere Pro/FCP and AVID (our AAF support/exchange for Avid is also part of 4.1). This truly energized everybody, and it was a great opportunity to re-engage with our peers.

Following the training, I met with AKN, one of the public broadcasting channels in Holland (located in Hilversum). Here, my colleague, Klaasjan Tucker and I talked them through CS4 workflow, AVID integration, and highlighted some of our lesser known (and seldom shown) features that truly augment and improve their broadcast workflow. Once again, great feedback was received, and we're due to meet with them again soon.

But it was a short stay in Amsterdam, and then we were off to Kortrijk to present at MultiMania. This would be my third time appearing on the MM stage, and it was once again a great pleasure to be there (and a phenomenal success, with nearly 1200 attendees). Joined by fellow my evangelist, Paul Burnett, we lead a series of sessions (including the closing session/keynote) around HD Video to the Web, CS4 Web Workflow and more. As always, a big thanks to the organizers and in particular, Koen De Weggheleire, for welcoming us back and putting on a grand show.

The only picture I took this week; from LeROY @ Grand Place, Brussels

Following MM, it was off to Brussels to conduct another series of Freelancer/VAR training sessions at the Belgian office. Much like Amsterdam, we had a great crowd of attendees, and the questions were all very high-level, and really provided everyone with lots of information. I also managed to exchange some of the new assets (RED footage, among them) with our Belgian/Dutch colleagues, so they now have some new goodies to show off!

In any event, I'm back to the US tomorrow, and then I've got a little time in the desert to re-group, and develop some new road content and additional stuff for AdobeTV. The calendar continues to evolve, so stay tuned for 'where' I'll be next.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hej hej, mina vänner! Well friends, I do apologize for the long delay in postings; with so many recent changes in schedule, it's been quite a whirlwind of events getting things ready, organized, and delivered in a timely fashion.

In any case, I'm in the midst of my final few days at LLB in Stockholm, along with my Adobe Nordic colleague, Max Hagelstam and our partners MediaTeknik. The show has been great, and as is often the case, our booth has been packed with continuous standing-room gatherings during my theatre sessions.

Photos by Mattias Jonsson

Max and me, and the MediaTeknik gang

The theatre sessions, held in the Speaker's Corner Theatre have been based around Time-Saving Techniques in CS4, as well as showcasing the 'new' RED Camera Workflow with our new, soon-to-be-released RED plugin (shown at NAB). This, along with sessions on RED & HD content to Blu-Ray/Flash Output has garnered many great questions, many great responses, and a great deal of buzz around RED, 'RED Raw' and Production Premium. Naturally, as part of the 'Time Saver' session, I also showcased the Final Cut-->CS4 workflow and once again, the crowd really responded positively.

An artistic shot of the Speaker's Corner light board

Continue reading "LLB Stockholm Loves RED & CS4 Time Saving" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hello, my friends! Well, it's now Friday, and NAB has come and gone. A whirlwind of events, non-stop presentations and customer chats, this year proved to be busier (and 'buzzier'...explain in a moment) than expected.

It all began on Monday morning, when I presented alongside our CEO, Shantanu Narayen and CTO of Disney's Interactive Media Group, Bud Albers at the Super Session keynote. In short, the keynote theme was "Disney and Adobe: Reinventing the Boundaries of Storytelling." You can read all about it HERE, (as it made the front cover and inside page of the NAB Daily) but the gist is that we not only talked about 'the future' of storytelling...but more to the point, I was there to showcase (and 'sneak') several new technologies that are in the works, namely Adobe Story and OnLocation (the next version).

It was truly an honor to present along these two industry giants (and a little bit of trivia, my first company-wide presentation was actually with Shantanu, back in 2003!) and the audience really got the message. Over the next few days, I continued to hear great comments (and receive compliments) about our vision, our clear story, and how 'cool' the presos were. The 'buzz' around Adobe Story (a collaborative, screen-writing tool, that allows you to leverage scripts/dialogue as MetaData at the earliest stage of pre-production) really generated some serious buzz amongst the attendees. People were floored, and simply continued to inquire all week long. Thanks to everyone involved. It was indeed a memorable moment.

Continue reading "Rockin' NAB, the TweetUp & the FCPUG SuperMeet" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

Continue reading "From CMA-New York and Images from Toca Me" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 4:24 AM | 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

Continue reading "CeBIT Comes to a Close: Core i7 & 64bit OS Rules!" »

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)

Hello again, friends! Today saw the completion of the CS4 Production Premium Tour in Stockholm, and as always, it's a pleasure to be in front of such a captive audience. As Max and I began the presentation at the Skandia (despite the odd blue skies, though sub-zero temperatures) several hundred of our 'closest friends' turned out to learn and be inspired...and I believe they were ;)

As in Finland, Norway & Denmark, the time-saving message of Production Premium (and specifically, workflows around using OnLocation for Direct-To-Disk capture, Adobe Clip Notes for client commentary, the amazing native RED workflow, and our Speech Search/Metadata/F4V export story) continued to wow users, new and old. And just on that: having polled the audiences in each city, we saw a great deal of new faces, many of whom were actually working in *other* facets of production (ie, design, web, etc) further emphasizing the cross-media nature of CS4, and moreover, how the creative world continues to evolve.

Max welcomes the crowd, as Jase preps for the start

A look at the theatre, naturally-lit, with my hands raised in true healing fashion

Continue reading "Saving in Stockholm; We All Shine On" »

Posted by Jason Levine at 4:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hey there, my friends! As the title suggests, Friday's CS4 Production Premium seminar in Copenhagen at the CineMaxx (our usual spot) was another fab show. With an incredible turnout, the enthusiastic crowd really embraced the new format of the seminar (split into two parts, TimeSaving & Editing Workflow) and lots of great feedback and questions followed. So many in fact, that Max and I didn't leave the theatre for nearly an hour after the seminar had finished. You just have to love Adobe users ;)

So, tomorrow we're in Stockholm for the final city on this Nordic Tour, and then I'll be back in the states for a brief while until I hit the road again with Greg Rewis, stopping in Hannover, Germany for CeBit, and then onto a few broadcast education conferences in New York.

For more information, check out the following links:

3-8 March: CeBit - Hannover, Germany

15-17 March: CBI/CMA - NYC

24-29 March: NBS-AERho - NYC

I'll be posting more information on the Education Broadcast conferences as we get a bit closer. In the meantime, I hope to see many of you in Stockholm tomorrow! And don't forget: we've also got an incredible line-up of partners and resellers in attendance as well, so be sure to bring your questions...

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Greetings, my friends! Just a quick update from the road to let you know that we're half-way through the Production Premium CS4 tour, and it's been an overwhelming success!

This time around, I've created a slightly different program, focusing on the 'Everyday Timesaving' aspects of PPCS4 in the first half of the show, with some intense editing workflow and post-production features in the second half. Needless to say, I think it's been resonating very well with our audiences, and the responses have been nothing short of phenomenal.

Having said that, two of the bigger 'hits' of the tour, thus far, have been the showcasing of our RED camera support and the new abilities in PPRO CS4.0.1 to import FCP Projects. Again, unlike launch tours, I've spent a good deal of time going through the entire workflow process (and highlighting all of the ins-and-outs with regard to setting the RED Source Panel attributes) along with demonstrating real-world workflows for sharing projects between FCP and Premiere. The latter has gone over particularly well, because I'm really stressing the idea of 'sharing the love'; making life easier by using all the tools at your disposal; and now, more seamlessly than ever before. The message is appreciated, the time-saving aspects undeniable, and the sincerity, well, I am nothing if not sincere and honest ;)

I've now arrived in Copenhagen and look forward to our seminar on Friday, spending the weekend visiting some customers in Sweden, and then the final show on Monday in Stockholm.

Thanks to everyone in Helsinki and Oslo who attended. You truly make the experience of touring and presenting worthwhile, and it's my esteemed pleasure to be able to spend some time (and save some time) with you. ;)

Until next time...

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)