As a rule, I don't blog about work-related stuff here but I've got to talk about the
Flash on the Beach session I attended yesterday.
Andy Polaine was one of the founding members of Anti-rom, the Sex Pistols of new media as Brendan Dawes has styled them, back in the early to mid 90's. Without knowing who he was back then, I came across his work while still at college in Dundee studying Electronic Imaging. I had just gotten into Director and was mucking about making little animations and interactive thingummyjigs when someone stuck in a CD of the work Anti-rom had done with Underworld. It was mind blowing stuff and it changed my whole view of interactive from what can best be described as playful amateurism to a real belief in the potential of the medium and perhaps more importantly for me, the possibility of pursuing a career in this area.
Andy spent an hour or so talking about the philosophy and importance of "Play" in all his work and why he thinks this should be the guiding principle of creative endeavour. To back up his argument, he showed some Director stuff from over 10 years ago that still looked fresh today which is pretty awesome when you think about how far the technology has come. What really struck me was how immensely practical they were back then in realising a particular look or effect that can only just be achieved nowadays using the latest code.
Take particle effects for instance - sure the latest version of Flash can now produce amazing scripted animations but how could you have achieved this 10 years ago? Simple - just film some ink droplets dispersing in water and make the film loop play when you click on the screen. This might sound pretty lame but trust me, the effect was really beautiful. Another example - 3D rotation. Take multiple shots and combine them using VR technology or just make someone stand very still on a revolving podium, film them and fake the effect? Genius.
In short, they didn't wait for the technology to become available or to work out the right way to code, they just did whatever they could to create the effect they wanted, published it and moved on to the next thing.
On leaving the theatre after Andy's presentation, I was infused with the same feeling of blue skies and the joy of making it up as you go that I last felt back in college. That's not to say that I lost that feeling altogether once I started doing commercial work but you can't escape the limits that are imposed by budgets, briefs, deadline and the like. (In a strangely synchronous act, I had dug out some CDs the night before, containing some of the stuff I did at college only to find that I couldn't play back the old Director movies anymore.)
Being reminded about those days also made something else clear to me. I belong to a particular digital generation that can remember how things were when the web was in it's infancy. Even more than becoming a father, having children or buying a house this has made me feel my age and the fact that when it comes right down to it, all I really want to do is play.
Needless to say, the kids loved it, the cat got scared shitless and I managed to whet my appetite for some serious fireworks in Lewes on the 5th where they blow hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of this stuff in one go.
Pumpkin carved by Rob.
