Notes from FLASHFORWARD

Well, my FlashForward Conference Notes (Boston - September 19-21) finally caught up to me via snail mail, and so here it is in no particular order:

• First of all, I was so proud that TWO of our faculty presented at the conference. Chris Florio presented a session on "Interactive Flash Video," and Michelle Yaiser presented a session on "Working with Flash on a Multi-User Multi-Touch Tabletop" --- kudos to Chris and Michelle!

• As I said before, for me, one of the highlights of the conference was listening to MIT Media Lab Professor, John Maeda. The conference notes said that Maeda was, "...named by Esquire magazine as one of the 21 most important people for the twenty-first century... and he first made his mark by redefining the use of electronic media as a tool for expression for people of all ages and skills. He has had major exhibits of his work in Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo, and has written several books on his philosophy of “humanizing technology” through his perspective on the digital arts."
  
• Maeda was very entertaining and so engaging as he spoke about his own personal history. His comment on "social networking" was one of many similar comments about the web's socio-semantic future. ( Recently, I have read this and heard this everywhere I turn, and I am happy to report that NEIA is offering a course in "online social networking" next summer upon approval.
• After he spoke his graduate students spoke and their presentation is supopsed to be accessible from: http://e15.media.mit.edu
• Speaking of social networking or social media --- I attended Mike Sommers presentation on "KickApps" (check out their website). As the conference notes said, "This session gives developers and designers an overview of social media, the opportunities it offers, and explains how to create successful social media experiences. Social media has radically changed the way publishers, websites, and brands communicate with their audiences, and the way people communicate with each other. Web 2.0 technology, social networking, user-generated content, online video, and Widgets are facilitating conversations that haven’t been possible through any other medium."
• I also attended Garret Nantz' session entitled, "Finding Creative Techniques" and the session basically dealt with how you keep the creative process going through a project. Using various Big Spaceship Flash projects, Nantz illustrated techniques in every phase of the creative process: brainstorming, writing, design, audio, video, and animation. He also shared some awesome tips and tricks for shooting live action video. It is too bad that I can't really convey his presentation because it was very interactive and engaging, but I can push you out to some of his work on his websites:

http://www.hbovoyeur.com/ (awesome, awesome site and special effects, when you see me, ask me how he did this)
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/30daysofnight/ (the effects in this,particulalrly the game are so creative)

(that's all for today....more to come)