There’s a lot happening lately, even within my small world, and I felt compelled to throw my 2 cents in for Vimeo,Instagram, Adobe Animate and AI.
Vimeo: I have great memories of Vimeo, one thing that stands out is winning animation of the year at Vimeo Award January of 2020, before the quarantine and lock down with the director Winnie Cheung for our film “Albatross Soup”.
Instagram: it is now bombarded with too many “suggestions” and “Threads” and ads. I intended to check out what my friends and colleagues are making, but being obscured by those unwanted contents, I ended up exiting the app with the feeling of bloating.
Adobe Animate: I learned Flash on a few jobs around 2010. I remember Mark Phillips and Jessica Milazzo showed me the ropes at Lifelong Friendship Society. My main tool is still photoshop, one of the most unpopular tools for animation, but I also use Animate for cleaner line/finish, and comping and putting all together in After Effects. I realized that relying on a monopoly company is not a good idea.
AI: I don't know if AI is to blame for the ditch the industry is in right now, I’m not an expert. But my feeling is that what we do and pushing buttons and typing prompts are 2 different things, and we are starting to see that way. There is still confusion and uncertainty, but I hope that the dust will settle soon enough. I feel that maybe AI animation will be one of the subgenres within, 2D animation, 3D animation, AI animation. Who knows?