Well, another FOTB is done and gone. Honestly, after the first one being so fantastic, I arrive at each one with a bit of fear that I might have overhyped it to newcomers and even to myself. But for the third time in a row, John has pulled off the best conference of the year (at least out of the conferences I went to) and all the newcomers were generally blown away.
A few changes this year. Most obvious was leaving the Old Ship hotel and moving over to MyHotel. I have to say MyHotel was pretty cool. Probably one of the more unique hotels I’ve been in. I’m glad I was alone in my room, as the bathrooms offer virtually no privacy though. The bar was decent enough, and had it stayed open past midnight, probably would have been just fine. However, the early closing resulted in gangs of dangerous (not) geeks roaming around Brighton til the wee hours. Predictably, many ended up at the Old Ship anyway, and I heard some got kicked out one night. It was all cool though. Eating pizza while sitting on Brighton beach at 3:30 am will go down as one of my great memories of this trip.
There were also a lot more people present this year. Over 1,000. I think previous years were something like 600-800. So I’m glad John’s doing well. It really didn’t feel like that many, but I hope it doesn’t get too much larger. The smaller size is part of the charm.
Oh, and the speakers… usual great line up. I didn’t see quite as many as I did last year. One speaker couldn’t make it, so John asked six of us to come up with a 10 minute presentation for Tuesday – on Monday night. So I spent Tuesday morning putting that together. It was great fun. Myself, Ralph Hauwert, Andre Michelle, Joa Ebert, Carlos Ulloa, and Mario Klingemann all spoke until John snuck up behind us and dragged each of us away – if we didn’t see him coming first. It went over so well, he’s thinking of repeating it next year, and getting a big hook! ๐
I think one of my favorite presentations was James Paterson. I’d seen him back in Toronto at FiTC something like 4 years ago. So creative and fun. Great inspiration session.
OK, and it has to be mentioned, the final session, full of controversy, Jonathan Harris. The session itself was pretty cool. I didn’t know his name, but knew several of his works, such as wefeelfine.org and tenbyten.org. He’s done lots of other cool things which he showed and were pretty interesting. Then he said something along the lines of, “Now I’m going to say a few things which might be hard to hear.” This alone didn’t sit well with me, like we were going to get a lecture where we were all going to be severely criticized. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much exactly what it was. The basic concept was that new media was in this “awkward groping stage” and that no masterpieces had been created. He said we were all either tinkerers and experimenters or selling our souls to do commercial work. That there were a lot of great communicators in the community, but none of us were really saying anything. None of us had any message. He had us ask ourselves the following questions:
OK, so it wasn’t easy to hear, that’s for sure. The brilliant part of it was that by opening with that line, any protest against what he was saying can be assigned to “hitting too close to home”. I need to remember that tactic next time I want to insult someone. Anyway, it was the talk of the evening. A lot of people were pretty pissed off. A few thought he was spot on. Most felt that what he had to say wasn’t that far off, but the way he came across was condescending and pretentious. I’m pretty much in the latter crowd. It did not at all come across as “hey guys, let’s become even better than we really are – we could do great things!” but much more as a scolding by a disappointed schoolteacher. Another aspect of why it work came to me last night – that Jonathan is not really part of our community. New media community, ok. But not so much the Flash community. I think if Hoss or Grant or even Natzke had gotten up and given the same speech (maybe smiling a bit instead of scowling at us the whole time) we would have given them a standing ovation. But here’s this guy that not many people know or know of personally, who comes and show us all this fantastic award-winning, gallery-showing stuff he’s done and then proceeds to tell us that everything we are doing is basically crap.
[Edit. I just wanted to clarify one thing here, as it’s been picked up on a few times, and reading it over, this last bit came across quite differently than I intended it. I’m not saying that because Jonathan is not part of the community, he can’t say anything or teach anything to us. Not at all. I’m not criticizing him by calling him an outsider. Not saying “how dare he?” This was merely an observation / speculation, that criticism is sometimes easier to take from someone you know, than someone coming in from outside. I had just had the thought that if someone like Hoss had said the same things, there would have been little or no controversy. I’m not saying that’s necessarily even a good thing. Just a possible fact.]
Anyway, nothing like a good bit of controversy and something to talk about to end off the conference! ๐
OK, and last bit of news… The British are coming! The British are coming!
Flash on the Beach invades Miami! I don’t know much about it, but it’s in April. 5-8 I believe. I’m sure you’ll hear much more about that in the coming weeks.
I agree with you completely … it was so arrogant I nearly laughed. I just ranted off in a comment on Peter Elst’s blog so my steam is now replenished but yea, how mad was that? Next time I’m feeling a bit downhearted cause I’m working late on a clients crappy marketing project I’ll just pack it all up and go off to do some tree rubbing’s… I’m sure my wife will be very happy. Anyway, off to Tinker …
Has this presentation been recorded, i was not @ fotb, so i d like to see where all the fuss is all about.
That photo pretty much sums it up. He looks so disappointed in us, doesn’t he? If nothing else, I give him credit for giving us all something different to talk about.
His talk left me with 1 ballon and no wishes, but you already heard that joke. I’ll go away and work on my “message” now.
great review, an enjoyable read as always ..
so it seems Mr.I Want You To Want Me and his balloons really shook things up !!
maybe that was his strategy and point …
i don’t know if that was inspirational to anyone
Did Jonathan get picked on by Flash developers as a kid and now has it in for everyone?
anyway I think he wanted to get attention and it worked ..
I wish I was there then I could be in a better position to judge if he is a good presenter
the proof will be if he speaks again i guess
personally I’m more interested in hearing about the beer, the pizza, the beach and the good times had
rather than focusing on what appears on the surface to be a pompous faultfinder
MIAMI now THAT is awesome and inspirational
I’m not so sure. To be honest, I found it quite inspirational and motivating, sure it was uncomfortable to hear and I’m sure it left everyone feeling a litte shocked but I do get what he was trying to say.
It was my first time to fotb and I was a tad disconcerted by community leaders/speakers I spoke to, I wont name them but, suffice to say I tried to approach certain speakers they were very pompous and far more condescending than Richard. Some even had an entourage.
I think the flash community as it grows is increasingly idolizing certain community members on par with pop stardom. I wouldn’t be surprised to see autographs being exchanged. Not to cut people down as there really are some amazing coders out there who are doing some truly ground breaking work. But lets give it at least a healthy amount of perspective.
However grating it was, I think Richard was trying to say that there are some incredibly talented people in our community and not just the well-known community leaders. With all this wouldn’t it be amazing if somehow we could utilize this to make something that really made a difference something to invoke an emotional response like a great artwork and be remembered instead of forgotten with the next Flash player released. I think it inspired me to think more about what I create than the tools i use to create them.
I didn’t really feel Jonathan was saying “don’t experiment and ticker” and I think it’s a shame that people focussed on that only. I think what he was saying was don’t *just* experiment and tinker with the technology at the cost of making anything with a strong ideas behind it. It’s also important to point out that he’s only recently become a full-time “artist” as you guys like to point to. He’s worked commercially for ages too.
Again, it wasn’t the essence of what he was saying that upset people, but the way it came across. Maybe he wasn’t intending to be that way at all, but there is no denying that he came across as arrogant and pretentious. And no denying that a vast majority of the audience came away with negative feelings after that talk. He was the talk of the evening, in very negative terms, which is sad because if he had ended just before the “this is going to be hard to hear” part, he would have been the talk of the evening in glowing terms. Even some of the people who are railing against him now were twittering things like “this is the most inspirational talk I’ve ever been to” just before that part.
I think he should have talked a bit more about his own commercial credentials, which might have put him in a different box from the “pretentious artist” one that he seems to have now been placed in. I wrote a longer comment on Peter Elst’s post, so I won’t repeat it here, but here is the link: http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2008/10/04/jonathan-harris-at-flash-on-the-beach/
I posted this over on Peter’s blog too, but wanted to make sure it was part of this thread as well…
After noticing all the hubbub my talk seems to have stirred up, I put together my own thoughts, in my own words, to help clarify what I was trying to say.
I realize that for many people, the tone of my presentation interfered with the message, which is a shame, but one for which I have only myself to blame. The tone probably could have been better, but I believe the message is important, regardless of how it was delivered.
Anyway, this page tries to sort that out:
http://number27.org/beyondflash.html
You may or may not find it interesting.
In any case, thanks for the hearty discussion.
Jonathan’s response:
http://www.number27.org/beyondflash.html
Good that he responded. I still feel a bit of attitude in the response, but whatever. He has his opinions, which he feels very strongly about. I agree with some of them – a lot of them, disagree with some of them, and overall didn’t like the tone with which they were presented.
Anyway, way too much has been said and written about this already. I’m done.
Thanks Jonathan. I posted my last comment before I knew you had posted yours here. So again, good that you responded, but I’ve said all I’m going to say on it.
I agree with Jonathan Harris 100%. Yes, we all have to experiment and create a lot of commercial crap but real masterpieces are FAR beyond this advertising world. And that’s what his 7 questions about. And I love them.
ok, i was on the fence about this issue and give Mr. Harris his entitlement to his opinion
I was not going to type anything more as enough has been said but
…Sorry I thought long and hard about the following very ANNOYING and extremely infuriating statements …
[quote]
“There have been no masterpieces”
“I define a masterpiece as a beautiful idea, fully realized, taken as far as it can go… … most of the work I see coming from the Flash community is largely devoid of ideas. There is great obsession with slickness, surface, speed, technology, and language, but very little soul at the core, very little being said.”
!! ?? !!
Now everyone is entitled to an opinion
and here is mine … I think thats a very unfair and blinked viewpoint.
I started to think about the 100’s designers and developers who have inspired me with what I would consider Masterpieces of that time.
Anyone from Nakamura to Natzke, Hillman to Penner, Dawes to Odendaal,
Looplabs to Praystation…the list is endless
(most of them I have spent my career trying to meet with for a beer or 3)
..possible masterpieces and possible genii/ geniuses in their own right.
(and all for their individual merits).
But one project that I personally know had a lot of “SOUL” came to mind
In 2002 I noticed one site being a finalist in more than 7 categories
while co-organizing the 2002 FlashintheCan Awards. I shortly after flew out to Vancouver to meet a 3 man team who had spent years working in a basement on grand budget of $0.00, eating noodles and working on a flash animation.
Broken Saints is an award-winning, partially animated, Flash-animated film series by Brooke Burgess, Ian Kirby, and Andrew West. First published in 2001, it is a hybrid of the comic and animation art forms that its creators refer to as a “cinematic novel.” Like a comic, with a more cinematic experience.
Broken Saints is some 12 hours long, split into 24 chapters published online between 2001 and 2003. Centered on philosophical, religious, political and spiritual themes, it tells the story of four strangers from “the quiet corners of the globe” connected by a vision they all receive of a coming evil. Their search for the truth behind the vision leads them to each other and to far larger and more disturbing truths than they could have expected.
Several chapters contain animated scenes which introduce and close the chapter, and allude to various pop culture media such as The Matrix, Donnie Darko, Fight Club and The Wizard of Oz.
The DVD version, released in 2006, was distributed internationally by 20th Century Fox. There’s rumours of a third person action-adventure video game on PS3, Xbox 360, or Wii (or all three).
The team was recently personally hired by Jada Pinkett Smith to do some flash animation work in a very similar style for the release of the movie “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith.
you can view the Brokensaints chapters here (for free)
http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/brokensaints.html
In an era when not many awards were available for Flash work
(FF being the exception) the following [partial] list speaks for itself
* 2001 Pixie Award Winner: Best Website that Incorporates Motion
* Flash in the Can 2002: People’s Choice Award
* Flash Forward 2002: People’s Choice Award & Best Cartoon
* Netfestival Brazil 2003: People’s Choice Award
* 2003 Audience Award at the Sundance Online Film Festival.
* 2004 Horizon Interactive Awards: Best in Show
* Telefilm Canada Grant Award 2004
* 2005 Annual Rue-Morgue Awards: Most Innovative Concept
* 2005 Canadian New Media Awards
sorry if that sounds like a :plug: for Brokensaints
but that’s my 2c worth…
In my view, that qualifies for a flash masterpiece
(even though its now very dated )its still a great story,
with ample of Soul, oodles of noodles and more words than a Princeton Alumni Weekly written by John Forbes Nash.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
๐
I posted this in defence of all those who enjoy working on Flash related projects who sometimes struggle and have to do what they can, with what they have, when they can, how they can, to the best of their ability.
you can determine your own masterpiece’s
Jonthan quoted Picasso saying รขโฌลBad artists copy; great artists steal.รขโฌย
After painting his masterpiece “Guernica” Picasso claimed to have been haunted by Balzac, author of “The Unknown Masterpiece”, the story of a painting that could be described as a mess that people immediately interpret as being the work of a raving madman (Frenhofer).
Many at that time thought Guernica was also a mess. Some still do.
Any “Masterpiece” is subjective.
Picasso also said
“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
so Tinker on and experiment away I say ๐
Oi – ‘Arris! Leave that nun alone you perv.
๐
Look, the guy had a point, and I think his heart is in the right place. All this stuff is still VERY new… The medium has really only existed for ten years or so, there weren’t many masterpieces in cinema in the first ten years. People are still figuring out how all this works, the terms of engagement (as it were) with our audience is still being defined. Videogames are just finding their feet in the realms of mainstream art (like cinema and popular literature). He’s right that maybe we should push ourselves more to do this. Jon Harris has done commercial work, I remember some of it from way back but he’s showed a bit of ambition and perhaps had a bit of good fortune and he’s now trying to move things forward. He maybe just misjudged who his audience were. Those of us involved in advertising, or the tinkerers are typically kept away from the ‘ideas’ part of it. We’re too busy meeting the deadline from the last idea or figuring out how to do ‘such and such’. It would be nice to be afforded the luxury of shaping what is being said and he’s right that we could all do that in our own work, should we be so inclined.
Ironically I can see some of his work being directly re-appropriated for advertising*.
*One of his projects was remarkably similar to a project for Sears that Digit did a few years ago.
Also I dunno about the whale project, that seemed a bit flaccid and self-indulgent to me.
To some extent I agreed with his argument that masterpieces are yet to be seen, too bad he came across as a pompous fart. Some of his work was amazing, the ballons were a bit boring, but in the end his list of artistic relevance was too based on his proclaimed romantic nature and therefore, irrelevant. Jonathan also says on his own blog: “I’m not a funny person.” I agree.
I just came across all this hubub. That dude is a douche. There are plenty more like him in any discipline. End of story.