An interview with Jason Levine

... about Adobe Production Studio, Audio and Video.

Please meet Mr. Jason Levine, "Sr. Worldwide Product Evangelist – Digital Video & Audio Adobe Systems Incorporated".

Alexander: It seemd you were very enthousiastic about Adobe Bridge during Production Studio seminar in Amsterdam. What makes this application that special according to you?

Jason: Well, as I mentioned in the seminar, Bridge is now a truly integrated part of the Production Studio. Beyond just meta-data tagging and flagging files for review, you now have the ability to preview After Effects presets and template project and actually ‘build’ projects and start the creation process right from within Bridge. There’s drag and drop from bridge into all the Production Studio applications, and with the ability to script processes (found in the tools menu), and becomes a very versatile asset management/batch processing tool as well.

Alexander: While you were talking about “integrated applications” and “redesigned interface” as main usability (upgrades) issues within Production Studio, you insisted on “Saving your time” mantra. Can you see a huge difference within your own projects, compared to a previous working method by using standalone applications?

Jason: Absolutely. The fact that you can move seamlessly between the applications, and similar screen layouts can be saved and recalled, has no doubt saved me a great deal of time in my own production work. A good example would be something like using Audition and After Effects. With Audition, I need the ability to see the large Mixer window, but also see the main track panel and files panels. However, sometimes I want to switch to a full screen view to do my editing. In the previous release, there was simply no way to do this ‘on the fly' ...and I wasted a great deal of time having to reconfigure my screen each time, for each task. Then, I’d go into After Effects, and everything was in a different place, and again, I’d reset their Workspaces (which were supported in AE6.5), but the flow of the process, including the tools, were all so different, it just added more time and frustration to the project. Now, the views can be set up in a similar fashion, the UIs react the same and the tools and shortcuts work the same way (when possible). And also…the brightness controls!! Now, I can make all the Production Studio apps be the EXACT same shade of gray, which again, when the UIs were different, could be very distracting. Now, it’s never been easier to make them uniform and keep the work moving along.

Alexander: I was happy to see Live Trace in Action within Illustrator. Why has Adobe discontinued the sale and development of old good Adobe Streamline as standalone application and rather chose to simply plug it in Illustrator?

Jason: I have no comment on this question.

Alexander: If I’m not completely mistaken, Macromedia’s Flash had a simmilar feature. Are we soon going to see Adobe’s Live Trace in Flash too?

Jason: I don’t have a comment on this one. You’d have to ask our web evangelist, Greg Rewis. ;)

Alexander: I’ve got an impression you have a lot’s of fun working with Adobe Audition, almost as much as working with Premiere Pro. What does make this application that special except “visual audio repair” feature, which you demonstrated to us with a lots of enthousiasm?

Jason: Well, aside from the restoration tools and abilities, and equally invested in it’s equalization and mastering capabilities, as well as it’s looping/song creation abilities. As a musician and former mastering engineer, I have worked will all applications, and continue to use Audition for everything that I create. Also, because I created the entire Loopology content library that ships with Audition (over 5,000 pieces of royalty-free loop content), I’m very familiar with the way it works, how to make loops sound good, and how to make a loop-production sound like real, performed music. And, I’ve also got a few Total Training DVDs on the subject as well…

Alexander: I believe you said that Encore DVD was (re)build, while based now on Photoshop engine… although I’m personly unable to see direct functioning simmilarities in between these two. Could you provide us some better explanation please? What part of the engine exactly are we here talking about?

Jason: The important thing to remember here is that Encore works *natively* in the Photoshop file format. We don’t use proxies of photoshop files (PSD), we don’t use aliases or derivative/converted versions... we use Native PSDs, and understand the native properties of a PSD file. As such, we offer the best and most-complete PSD integration over any other DVD authoring application.

Alexander: It looks like Adobe is giving a great importance to publishing the movies on the web and in pdf documents, alsmost as much as editing video’s in the film industry... Is it real and wise strategy?

Jason: Adobe is still committed to both mediums. However, with Flash and Dreamweaver integration (and now that one user can have all of these applications at their fingertips) web and mobile delivery is bigger than ever, and is only going to get bigger. We’re happy to be at the forefront of this growing movement.

Alexander: Are we soon going to see a Flash Player intergrated into Acrobat Reader? I mean, we don’t want Windows asking us any questions at all, while opening embeded movie into a pdf document, do we?

Jason: Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the future direction of products and releases and what features they may/may not include.

Alexander: As far as I could see and hear, Adobe is pretty confident about usage -and also the future of Flash Player (96.3%) on the net. Should Apple (QuickTime), Microsoft (Windows Media Player) and RealNetworks (RealPlayer) be worried?

Jason: Well, we support Quicktime, Windows Media and Real Media (for export), as well as Flash Video. However, the numbers speak for themselves.

Alexander: Now Adobe and Macromedia are married, one wouldn’t claim that easely that there is still serious and fair competition going on out there. Is it healthy for Adobe?

Jason: Not sure what you’re asking here.

Alexander: If there was no Adobe, I would...?

Jason: No Adobe? Well, I wouldn’t have many applications installed on my computer, that’s for sure!!

Website: www.adobe.com

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