Earlier this year at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, Kate Swanborg, Vice President of Technology, Communications and Strategic Alliances at DreamWorks Animation told a room of industry executives in the HP suite that the filmmaking industry changed when films became data.
Swanborg says that when you’re processsing more than 270 billion pixels at time to make Shrek, Boss Baby or another DreamWorks animated films, you need a lot of processing power to make that happen in order to turn 120 minuntes of pure imagination into a final product. Swanborg says that technology is the enabler for today’s storytelling.
“Since we work in a 3D and the digital space, what’s valuable for our artists is the fastest way to realize and visualize their stories. The faster they can author the film in that imagined environment, the more time they have to let their imagination to explode within that unreal world,” said Swanborg. “We’re always pushing the limits and the bottom line is how quickly we give them the chance to visualze these intensely complex and computer heavy worlds.”
“Sometimes I get the question ‘why aren’t you working on creative computer?‘ and I say to those people with great respect, I’m sorry but computers aren’t creative, people are,” said Swanborg.
Those creative people Swanborg is referring to are a part of an industry that’s generated 29.5 million jobs in 2015. According to a 2015 global study by Ernst & Young in 2015 the creative industries generated around $2,250 billion in revenues. In the US, that number was $698 billion in 2015 which is about 4.32% of U.S. goods and services according to a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The study also maintainted that the creative industries employ more people than the automotive industry in the United States, Europe and Japan combined.
Take Boise, Idaho-based independent filmmaker Christian Lybrook. Lybrook says that technology has changed the way he creates films.
Christian LybrookChristian Lybrook, Boise, Idaho based independent filmmaker. Image credit: Lila Streicher.
“Certainly technology has made things faster, smaller, cheaper and more efficient, which helps as an independent creator like myself, but I look at this from another angle. Technology for cameras, computers, software, processors, etc. change so fast, and as an independent creator, I’m more interested in how my storylines shift based on changes in technology,” said Lybrook. “As technology evolves, there’s a potential for new storylines to open up.”
“Things that were once sci-fi become reality, so the nature of the storytelling changes from one based in speculation to one based in advancements in tech and human knowledge. This gives my fiction a realistic and relatable edge,” said Lybrook.
Jennifer Kite-Powell is a writer who looks at the intersection of technology and science with art & culture, health, environment and industry. You can follow her on Twitter @jennalee.
But to process billions of pixels like DreamWorks does with its animated films, they chose to work with HP and have been doing so for more than a decade. Swanborg says HP is the only workstation they use to make their animated films.
Swanborg says there were moments in the past when their digital creators had a vision for a film and just couldn’t make it happen because it cost too much or it was impracticable to move forward on financially.
“This is why we don’t use a ‘creative computer’ to get that job done, we use HP Z series workstations,” said Swanborg. “All of our artists work on HP workstations so they can realize and visualize these worlds as quickly as possible.”
“We are so focused on storytelling at DreamWorks and we knew we had to create an environment that would let our team realize their imagination,” added Swanborg. “We have to take the impractical and make it possible and that’s where the technology comes in.”
Accoding to Ron Coughlin, President of Personal Systems, HP empowering creatives is part of their DNA.
“The very first product that Bill and Dave made was the audio oscillator for Disney’s Fantasia back in 1939,” said Coughlin. “As creative fields became more digital, we continued to provide innovations for the world’s most creative people. Today, that includes filmmakers, engineers, scientists, marketers, designers, artists, game developers, personal storytellers and the every day creator in all of us.”
HP’s Z series, can also be found on the International Space Station and is being used by NASA configure how to live in space while on long space voyages through through space farming. The Z2 mini workstations are used by Studio Libeskind, which designed the new World Trade Center master plan in New York City. The HP DreamColor displays, which were co-created with DreamWorks to replace their CRT monitors which were displaced by flat screen TVs, have been in 80% of Academy Award Nominations for Visual Effects since 2011. And in 2015, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the HP DreamColor Display with the Scientific and Engineering Award.
Studio Libeskind. Image by Dbox.The World Trade Center master plan by Studio Libeskind in New York City.
Daniel Libeskind, Principal Architect and Founder of Studio Libeskind said he starts every project by drawing a line.
“I start with a line but I use technology to help bring my vision alive,” said Libeskind. “If I want a building with 1,000 windows, I need to be able to see how they can be shaped, or how the light would stream into the room from those 1,000 windows at different times of the day, technology allows me to see that.”
Jennifer Kite-Powell is a writer who looks at the intersection of technology and science with art & culture, health, environment and industry. You can follow her on Twitter @jennalee.
While HP focuses on the hardware game for creatives, Adobe is focused on software.
The company has devoted part of its creative agenda to classrooms to help cultivate digital literacy and creativity for Generation Z. According to a study commissioned by Adobe, 85 percent of students and 91 percent of teachers see creativity as essential to students’ future careers and 94 percent of teachers feel their students will have careers that don’t exist today.
Adobe started working with educators around the country to increase the focus on creativity in classrooms. Adobe Spark, which is a content shop that lets users create and share visual stories such as social media posts, memes, graphics and animated videos is used by some teachers to show their students the power of storytelling with technology.
“Filmmaking is increasingly accessible to anyone. Next generation filmmakers like Joi McMillon have access to the same set of Adobe Creative Cloud film editing tools that David Fincher used for Gone Girl and Tim Miller used for Deadpool,” said Bill Roberts, Senior Director of Professional Video Product Management, Adobe.
“Unlike generations past when film production required specialists in sound editing, color correction or animation, Adobe’s Premiere Pro enables anyone to do professional quality post-production right in their existing workflow,” said Roberts. “Adobe is also helping creators get their work in front of a larger audience with new features like the Social Publishing Panel (beta) that will let creators determine how to optimize the performance of their content online.”
As filmmaking continues to evolve, Roberts says the company will continue to integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence into the products as well as focus on the augmented reality and virtual reality markets to meet the demands of the increasing community of filmmakers exploring this new medium.
Which is a good bet since IDC reports that the AR/VR market is expected to reach $29 billion by 2020.
Already Adobe’s Premiere Pro’s virtual reality /360 editing tools have made their way to indie filmmakers and 360 filmmakers for VR storytelling. Indie film studio Vrse.workscreated a 360 film that told the story of an Ebola survivor in Liberia. Producers Randal Kleiser and Tanna Frederick created a VR short imagining what it would be like to reunite with loved ones after being frozen for nearly 30 years. Lucas Wilson of Supersphere VR is stretching reality with After Effects in virtual reality/360 to bring alien abductions to life.
And, then there’s Invisible by entertainment company, 30 Ninjas. This episodic series is considered the first scripted VR series and is produced by Doug Liman, who directed and produced the Bourne Identity.
30 NinjasThe first VR series, Invisible created by 30 Ninjas.
But, there’s also the power of small tech.
“What’s interesting is that my current projects are more traditional in nature and rely less on obvious technology advances. Behind the scenes, we’re using a ton of tech, but the finished product of these films will feel more old-school,” said Lybrook. “My short film, Split Rail, which is an American gothic family drama is influenced by cinema of the 1970s. Robert Altman, Brian de Palma used camera pans and zooms to reveal information instead of complicated camera moves tracked by computers or CGI effects. And today for us, we’re using small-scale tech, mobile phones, to pre-visualize shots.”
Lybrook says they go to a location and dial up different camera settings or lenses and the phone approximates what it’d look like through that specific camera with that specific lens and settings. Don’t like what they’re getting? They simply swap out the lens through a setting in the app to see how things could look differently.
“This type of tech helps us know exactly what we’re going to do when we’re shooting,” says Lybrook.
Lybrook adds that while technology has democratized and opened filmmaking, he doesn’t think that technology changes the creative process, but gives a creator options.
“Back in the day, screenwriting was done on a typewriter. Today, there are dozens of different tools for screenwriting, notecard, storyboarding, editing, pre-vis, visual fx,” said Lybrook. “But it was when editing tools evolved from things like Steenbecks to non-linear editing software applications that really opened things up. Suddenly, you could shoot on a camcorder (now a smart phone) and you could edit on your computer.”
“That’s revolutionized things. Now things like AR, VR and so-called 4D theater experiences, change the experience for audiences. It’s cool to see,” said Lybrook.
Jennifer Kite-Powell is a writer who looks at the intersection of technology and science with art & culture, health, environment and industry. You can follow her on Twitter @jennalee.
[“Source-forbes”]
