The Future Waves Hello

My first blog posting was about my past and last week’s was about the present. It seems only fitting that I conclude my opening trio of postings by talking about the future. My future, to begin with, but more importantly — your future.

It’s common to talk about one thing only when we discuss the future — technology. I spend a lot of time talking about it on my own blog — Hollyn-wood. The term “technology” normally falls into two main discussion points — the hardware and software that we all work with, and changing methods of distribution. The words “workflow,” “tapeless,” “HD” (okay, that’s not really a word, but you get what I’m saying), and the “Web” keep on popping up. There’s also a phrase that you hear a lot — “democratization of the media.” That refers to the implications of making the tools of media creation (shooting, editing and distribution) so cheap that almost anyone can afford to play in this game.

I’ll talk about all of this in future postings, unless there is a huge outcry from you to back off and tell old war stories instead.

But what I want to talk about right now is something that technology can effect but is rarely discussed — collaboration. How working by ourselves had changed how we work with others.

Filmmaking is, by its very nature, a task that requires multiple people. Except in the rare cases of some experimental films, or some animated films, we rarely work alone. There are so many facets to creating a film that it would nearly impossible to be someone who was good at all of them. Think of it — you would have to have the talents to produce, write, direct, act, design, shoot, edit, record sound and create fully-mixed soundtracks, compose music, do special effects, color correct, and distribute the film.

Anyone who thinks they can do all of that is a total fool, in my opinion. You might be able to stagger through it, but you simply couldn’t do it all well.

So, we’re going to be working with other people for a long time. But the way in which we do that is probably going to change. Hell, it’s already changing. In the old days, about five years ago, you worked with a visual effects house that was across town and you complained about the amount of time that it took to drive there from your editing room — for meetings or for delivering the HD tapes to them.

Then people started having visual conference calls using iChat, and it wasn’t always necessary to drive across town. Then along came technologies like SyncVue, which sat on top of Skype, and allowed remote control of Quicktime movies among up to ten people.

Now we see that VFX houses like Rhythm and Hues are web connected between their United States and India offices. I’ve been talking to several people who are setting up post-production sound facilities in India, that will do films over there and here. If a film’s foley work on reel five needs some additional work, a press of a button sends it over to the office in Mumbai where it can be done overnight.

24 hour work, without working 24 hours.

But the issues of collaboration over long distance are myriad and we’re just beginning to figure that out — thanks to social networking and other technology tools.

I’ll talk more about that in a few weeks.

In the meantime, keep those e-cards and e-letters, e-coming in!