Creating Motion Graphics

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” So begins one of my favorite books, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by the late Hunter S. Thompson. We too drive from Los Angeles to Vegas every year for the NAB show, but the only drugs involved were various forms of back, body, and head aspirin in anticipation of the sensory onslaught, endless walking, and bags laden with brochures that define the NAB experience. And huge quantities of vitamins, attempting to stave off this year’s strain of the NAB Flu.

In an earlier blog post, we mentioned some of the more intriguing products we saw at NAB; in this one, I want to share some of the “flavor” of what the show was like. As a warning - before the amnesia sets in - to make sure no one repeats our mistakes.

As expected, NAB 2008 did not reveal any major new software releases for motion graphic designers, but it did showcase a number of interesting new plug-ins. We’d like to give you a quick round-up of our favorites here; we’re arranging to give many of these more in-depth reviews up here on PVC over the next several months. We also were very interested in with what The Foundry has done with the high-end compositing application Nuke (which they acquired from Digital Domain), and came away with the impression that in this slow economy, training has become more important again.

It’s been awfully quiet around here lately...too quiet. But you know why: It’s the week before NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters) Convention, the largest annual industry trade show for those of us in North America), and we’re all hunkered down either a) finishing projects before NAB, b) getting our presentations ready for NAB, c) making out our shopping lists for NAB, or d) all of the above.