Attending Adobe Max
I registered, I watched, I was inspired — and I even got a free tee-shirt! Not only was the entire conference free it was also full of valuable stuff. By the end, my eyes were a bit blurry and my head was overloaded, but I’m glad I took the time and a few days off to soak in what Adobe max was delivering. Here are my highlights:
Elyse Klaidman and X In A Box
X In A Box is an awesome company on an awesome mission. Coincidentally, I had just finished taking the course they created, Pixar In A Box and I kept feeling like it was one of the most valuable things I’ve ever consumed — not only is it one of the best courses I’ve encountered on storytelling, going deeper, you get to learn all about the science and math and people who make the magic of Pixar. Woefully, I wished I could have had access to this sort of thing when I was in grade school.
At Adobe Max, I came across a talk with Elyse Klaidsman, the founder of X In A Box. She explained their mission as a company to partner with companies who care and create free virtual courses to inspire students everywhere. The coolest part, even for me (as a 33-year-old human) was meeting and hearing personal stories about the people who work at Pixar and listening to what kinds of paths they followed into their careers. I learned so much and realized I have so much to learn if I ever want to find my way into that world. Nonetheless, I was inspired and driven to keep going forward and evolving my creative abilities. Next on my list to watch is another course they offer called, Imagineering In A Box.
Sal Khan of Khan Academy.
I had known about Khan Academy and Sal Khan lightly because of taking the Pixar In A Box series. But there’s so much revolutionary stuff happening around this man over the past 8 years, I’m feeling a bit out of the loop. As the “poster child” for remote learning and free online education, Sal Khan is creating a school and resource that has the potential to give the world equal access to education. His philosophy about the importance of math & science resonated very strongly. In summary it was about how the misconception within our culture is that we believe and tell kids that math & science do not apply to real-life or the jobs we’ll have when we are older. That it’s just a means to an end, so what’s the point in learning them? That couldn’t be a bigger mistake and further from the truth. His analogy was that you don’t learn to mix paint colors just to mix paint, you learn that so it can unlock the power to create a spectrum of colors as an artist. Sure, paint mixing is a little less painstaking to grasp, but I see what he’s after. Math and science is a tool that can unlock the power to understand physics, quantum mechanics, the mysteries of our universe, and beyond. How will our culture unlock and push our current knowledge forward if we do not learn the tools? All of this, of course, makes me think deeply about whether or not I should spend a few years relearning algebra, because while I have an enormous curiosity about science,I have absolutely no idea how to do the math to understand it quantitatively. And why not? It’s free? It seems to me that the greatest discoveries come from a blend of a combination of creativity and an understanding of math and science. If it weren’t for that combination there would be no Pixar and we’d all be probably working on some sort of variation of Windows machines.
Conan is funny.
As a comedy fan new to the world of Adobe I thoroughly appreciated the appearance of Conan O'Brien. He plays the buffoon to a T, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize he’s a brilliant and bright man at his core. Whether he was on a long-winded pseudo technical rant with computer science jargon or testing out the new A.I. Photoshop features to increase his age and muscle size, or being the only member in the audience receiving a gift from the Microsoft under his seat, the gags were a delightfully refreshing break in between all the tech talk. Plus, his expert dunce POV resonated perfectly with me because in the world of Adobe I often felt like an incapable, under-skilled outsider. He made for a great host and also makes me wonder who sets up and helps write these gags and situations for him to jazz up the conference? Does he have his team of writers help? Who builds the scripts and plots of how the keynote will go? However it works, sounds like a pretty fun gig.
Adobe makes cool stuff.
A way to photograph objects with your cell phone and turn them into 3D rendered objects? AI Photoshop to change age and body shape? Automatic sharpening for videos that are a bit blurry? These are real things and real solutions that people are developing to make the Adobe platforms better and easier to use, and it seems like they're all coming from smart people living in India. I wonder why? What makes their culture excel at learning and developing these types of technology solutions? The depth and complex capabilities of the Adobe software are quite amazing.
To teach?
Over three days I tuned into some informative and valuable lessons with some great teachers. Sure, some were so-so, but the majority were fantastic. I started to reflect on how I might be able to turn around and start producing content that shares and teaches what I know. I started asking myself, what do I know? And what could I share? There’s gotta be something? Techniques I use to be a writer? I do so much learning, but at some point, I’ve got to share it back and contribute. What good is knowledge if you never share it? I think I’m held up because I feel like I haven’t reached a place to share what I know or I feel as if I’m not qualified to teach yet. I’m still climbing up the mountain I guess. But there’s got to be a few things I could share for those coming up behind me. If there’s one thing Max left me with on this, is that I might need to dig a little deeper and see what I can contribute back.
Practice. Repetition. And exposure to experts.
If I’m going to get more familiar with digital art, I’ll need more practice and repetition. More things to film. More things to draw or illustrate. If I could just take a little sentence here to inspire myself, I’d like to say, “Hey Johnny, keep creating and keep going. You’ll get… somewhere!” Yeah, alright. That felt good. Watching these tutorials was a really helpful resource to see a myriad of different work styles. Everyone has their way of organizing footage and arranging their workspace, and it’s interesting to see and figure out what works best for myself. It’s like getting a seat in the room of a bunch of different editing rooms around the world, except my apartment is a whole lot brighter.
Wes Anderson is cool.
I like the way he talks. And I like how he serves soup for lunch as craft services to keep productions going. He seems funnier than I thought he’d be. I haven’t seen many of his films, but I’m very familiar with his name and a basic idea of his peculiar style. This is no concern to you or whoever you are reading this for some odd reason, but I’m going to make a mental note to watch his films, a whole bunch of them, and study them up real good. Yup, that’s what I’m gonna do.
Ok. I’m all done with this blog now.