Creativity Base

Back in April, I was asked by the wonderful folks behind the group Mobile Monday in Adelaide if I would be interested in presenting at one of their sessions. Having been actively interested in smartphones since I bought my first back in 2009, I agreed to present and decided to look into what was coming up on the mobile video front. After spending several hours trawling through specifications, articles and forecasts (many hosted by the terrific website GSMarena.com) I assembled my observations into a series of slides and transferred them directly to my LG Viewty Smart GC900 phone. Why, do I hear you ask? Well, the days of the laptop presentation are over my friends. When I chose to invest in my LG handset last year, one of the exciting new features was a composite video output. By running a cable directly from my phone to Mobile Monday’s provided desktop projector, I was able to give the presentation from the palm of my hand.

These early generation smartphones are not without their limitations, but change is afoot. Offering faster processors, better resolution screens, more storage space and more flexible operating systems as general improvements, we’ll be watching the decline of the phone and the emergence of the pocket media and communications centre before the year is through.

Since giving this presentation, exciting new models have already been announced, including several with HDMI output capabilities. The Android operating system is also proliferating, though my new Smartphone will most likely be Nokia’s N8, which runs the Symbian 3 operating system. I went to a conference in Sydney on Friday and came extremely close to not taking a laptop. With a device like Nokia’s forthcoming N8, I will be able to connect to a hotel or conference centre TV, flip out a collapsible wireless bluetooth keyboard and have a seriously powerful pocket computer at my hip.

Not only that, it will also have a 720p HD video and 12MP stills camera built in, and a squillion other attractive productivity and lifestyle features. As a digital media professional who likes to keep mobile, this wave of change is one I’ll be riding all the way.

Dan Monceaux

The animation production and consumption communities have been steadily conditioned to ultra-slick, glistening, epic-budget animation, produced by the likes of Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Aardman and the other major studios over the past 25 years. It is important for animators as artists and craftsman in their formative years not to get hung up on emulating these ‘big box’ aesthetics. Afterall, the key to effective animation is mastering the illusion of movement, and that can be achieved without ever turning on a PC. There are countless opportunities to explore analog techniques and hybrid methods awaiting the curious animator. In fostering resourcefulness in animation (rather than resource dependency) and daring to create new styles or revive lost methods there is an exciting frontier ahead of us.

Studio animation has always been eager to hide the hands of the magician (read ‘animator’) with only a few exceptions. Animation legend Chuck Jones’ classic Warner Brothers cartoon from 1953 ‘Duck Amuck’ is a popular example of breaking the format’s conventions. In this rightly lauded short, Daffy Duck gets tangled up in a fierce argument with the animator as to where, what and why he exists. The page, the animators tools, and the true ‘God’ of the animated cartoon is revealed, with comical and extremely memorable results.

The British claymation series Morph produced back the 1970’s also combined the animator with his clay puppets in Morph’s world, without compromising on the performances of the claymation characters. Morph would often turn to his animator for advice when things weren’t working out for him, and the line between worlds of imagination and reality were beautifully blurred. In embracing the animator and his or her hands, a distinctive look and feel can be created, leading once again to much more memorable experience for the viewer.

The internet has afforded us the opportunity to share and enjoy a resurgence of alternative animation techniques, if not yet embraced by mainstream broadcasters, production houses and ‘old world’ markets’. I stumbled upon this video today, which shows a playful combination of physical and drawn animation technique. Have a think about which animated films and cartoons have stuck with you and why- if you’re anything like me it’ll be the animators who took risks and broke new ground that left a lasting impact.

Dan Monceaux

Anyone working with video, audio, high-end graphics or animation projects will inevitably face the need to move and share hefty volumes of data. Outside of bringing your client or collaborator into your studio, or running an account with a courier company, there are many more time and financially economical ways to send works in progress for approval. Unlike FTP transfers (and these are still great when there’s a tech-head on each end of the deal) the solutions this post focusses on don’t require technical savvy on the recipient’s end. Emma Sterling and I rely on these tools heavily when we are collaborating with other professionals locally and internationally, and if you manage your workflow around their limitations, you won’t have to shell out a cent.

Best free tools for moving data

• Yousendit.com

For files under 100Mb, we still use the longstanding favourite, YouSendit. With a free account on YouSendit, you can send files, along with a short description to multiple email recipients. Rather than gumming up their email inboxes, YouSendit stores the data on their server, and simply sends a nice, friendly email with a download link to your selected recipients. The file resides there for a limited time (a number of days) which is generally ample for the short-term exchanging of content. We also recommend you download the helper application to enjoy added drag-n-drop convenience from your desktop and improved transfer speeds. If you value the service, you can also pay for membership, express delivery and a range of other options.

• Sendspace.com

When 100Mb of Yousendit free transfer love aren’t enough, it’s Sendspace to the rescue. Sendspace’s transfer rates tend to lag behind Yousendit’s a little in our experience, but we’re yet to find a better free way to move such sizeable hunks of data. We mostly use Sendspace to deliver previews of videos we’re editing. By using Adobe Media Encoder to export our footage from Adobe Premiere, we are able to compress our work to sit snuggly under their 300Mb limit (Media Encoder calculates the file sizes before the compressing begins) allowing us to move any project’s low-res preview, regardless of its duration. Another way of working with the file size limitation is to use 7Zip or a similar compressor, and break your compressed file into 300 Mb chunks. Sendspace also offers a free downloadable application called Sendspace Wizard, which resembles an FTP interface, and again offers improved uploading times and flexibility. Once you’ve uploaded a file, your recipient gets a simple email with a download link and you’re in business.

• Dropbox

Dropbox is the file-mover that I’ve discovered most recently, and is one we tend to favour specifically for internal use. Dropbox creates a web-drive, which conveniently appears just as any other folder would on your desktop. When you move or copy a file to it, any other computers (or mobile devices) with Dropbox installed (provided they are also logged into the same account) will automatically update their contents locally. We find this most useful when moving data between our home and Tomorrow Studio offices, and also use our Dropbox to keep templates and frequent use documents ever-ready. You could also easily create multiple accounts, for instance, project specific ones that could facilitate a cost-effective collaborative server… quite enticing since the ceiling for free accounts is initially set at 2 Gb but is expandable to 5 Gb, provided you share the love, and spread the word about Dropbox!

Dan Monceaux