“Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars” – Coldplay
That song, from 10 years ago, has likely been utilized in the echoing opening videos at Adobe MAX. The tone is inspiring, deep, expansive, and, unlike space, loud. We are worlds away from Los Angeles. We might even be worlds away from our day to day work. We’re on the beach (or on a boat). We’re dipping our toes in the waves. We’re enveloped in humidity blankets. Our glasses and our lenses are fogging up.
In this space, pun intended, we’re allowed to seek new connections, bonds, and constellations. We consider how we can proactively, uniquely, and quickly establish links and workflows between products, opportunities, and colleagues, in the efforts of creativity and community.
In this ecosystem, Adobe actually pushes us not just to the cloud but into space itself: dancing astronauts graced the MAX morning key note, isolated from their background courtesy of mask tracking, a yet-to-be-announced-but-lets-show-you-here-on-the-stage-anyway feature in Premiere. Just 12 hours before, I begged to the editing gods to let there be a mask tracking tool directly in Premiere. And so, as the radio pleaded in the Uber on the way to the Miami Convention Center that very morning, “Don’t Stop Believing.”
As we look to the future, space or otherwise, AI and technology provides an opportunity to focus on problem solving. It is an intention that has been ingrained into Adobe’ approach and the Generative AI products in Premiere.
“When it comes to, what’s the first generative AI experience really going to be in Premiere Pro, we were heartfelt about making sure that these solutions that are natively built into the app authentically solve daily problems that video editors face,” Jason Druss, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Video at Adobe shared while walking through Premiere’s new features. Adobe’s new Generative Extend developed out of conversations with editors and what they need most. “You’ll be hard pressed to find any video editor who’s been working for more than six months, who hasn’t run into the problem where you need to apply a transition and you don’t have enough footage to cover all the time, or you replace take four with take five, or an actor messed up an eye-line, or the camera shook, or just the clip’s not long enough, and now you have that little annoying gap. You want to stay in the zone. You want to stay in your creative flow. And these problems, just are a brick wall that force you to stop having fun. How can we use generative AI to eliminate as much of that pain as possible?” (This pain we’re referring to is not, it should be noted, to be confused with T-Pain who is performing at Adobe Bash).
While Druss walked me through the demo, also featuring astronauts in space, he reminded me that Generative Extend could also solve the audio headache every filmmaker has had… not enough room tone! Ever needed a few more frames of room tone? We all have. Even if you said no.
As the astronauts explored on screen in the demo material, I couldn’t help but wonder what space (pun intended), or vast gray area we walk into when it comes to ethics and actors. Do we need to say anything if we’re using AI to generate more content, or in Firefly’s case, video content from the talent we work with? Will something I apply generation extend to be used as training material. Druss, and Adobe, are very clear: “We are not training the model on customer data. If you use Generative Extend, we’re not training off of that clip under any circumstances,” Druss shared. “Not only are these tools designed to solve problems authentically, but also are commercially safe to use and done with the absolute highest ethics, safety, trust and responsibility in mind.”
These novel AI features are partly what propelled first-timers to land on the moon of MAX for the first time. “I wanted to see what’s the latest and the greatest. And I was really hoping that Adobe would show off the video AI capability. And they did.” shared Brian Denny, Assistant Professor of Digital Media Design at Florida Gulf Coast University. “I really like what Adobe is doing with AI. Seems to me like Adobe is making it safe for a classroom setting,” Denny shared after attending an Adobe MAX Networking Event for for first time MAX-goers. His table mate, Frank Robertson of South Dakota State University, was also drawn by the new AI capabilities. “AI, it’s one of the focuses that I’m looking at while I’m here, taking as much sessions as I can, because as a photojournalist and someone who teaches visual storytelling to my Students, that generative AI content is really interesting.” Robertson had attended MAX online before, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come in person this time to Miami. “The online offering is fantastic. But just I wish I could be there. I wish I could experience this. And so it’s great to be here, to be here to experience these spaces, these places and these things.”
These spaces and places can provide the needed inspiration for creatives, and that goes beyond our day to day work in creative products as Izzaldeen Mohammad shared. “What inspires me to see, other people, how they think, how they work, see different mentalities, different cultures, so inspiring to me, like not just the tools I see here. So like, communicating, networking, yes, it’s all amazing.”
First-time attendee Nicole Bodkin expressed her delight to be at MAX. “I’ve used Adobe products since I was in middle school and so to be able to come now and, my company sent me over, was just an awesome opportunity. And I was so excited when I they told me I could go. So now I’m overwhelmed by all the options, and just excited to learn and meet people.” And off she quickly went, a comet creating trails and ties along the way.
For a galactic enterprise of sorts, pushing the boundaries of technology, on Day 1, Adobe’s focus seemed remarkably human, physical, and concrete. Hype videos showcased photographers developing film, graffiti art, and other tethers to physical products and outcomes. We’ve come out of space, and landed on the ground, as a human making footprints with our new communities. As Chair and Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen noted in the first keynote that all the artwork shared was “human created art at its core and remixed with AI.”
At MAX, we’ve come out of the clouds, or cloud depending on whether we’re referring to Frame.io, and re-established our relationships and significant connections and constellations. An initial hello yields abundance. A warmth transcends MAX; it is gentler than the humidity and more like the soft beach water. Big hugs. High fives. Comfort. Belonging.
It’s the kind of community that can make internal jokes, like calling a project “Final_Final_Final” in the keynote. It’s the kind of community that invites you to it, such as Sandisk who is looking to partner with creatives to share their new kit. Offering a custom SD card case that looks like a 256GB card, created by Michael Hoang, Senior Manager of Content Strategy at Western Digital.
You are here among your people. And they are the kind of people who might be frantically searching for a yellow ticket in a LUMIX glass cage to win a stuffie, or mesmerized by someone on stilts, or part of a grand audience producing a barrage of cell phones and throwing them in the air to capture a moment and share it with their own communities.
They are also the community that is learning continuously, either through classes or through the keynote. When Ashley Still, SVP and GM, Creative Product Group, Adobe, shared that they were going partner with the biggest creative community, I wondered, “does that mean us?” Not exactly: Adobe is now a global partner with Creative Mornings (was the keynote not already a creative morning, really? Seemed fitting). Upon the announcement, a guest close to me wondered, “Who?” Once informed, it was clear this is important to Adobe.
Realizations are a constant of MAX.There is a moment at MAX when you realize, suddenly and clearly, that you can connect creatively across programs to expand more. Create video in Firefly, extend and solve problems in Premiere, share in Frame.io. Use camera to cloud to immediately get assets. However you connect it, like a savvy form of Dots, you’re helping to expand your creative space.
It’s worth noting here that vertical video editing on mobile was notably absent across the board at Adobe. I watched video editors AirDrop assets from phones to computer, and edit content in Premiere on laptops. I realized I hadn’t heard anything about an updated vertically-oriented phone-ready video editing software from Adobe. Premiere Rush still appears to exist. But no additional products seemed to take it’s place.
Just last week, Coldplay released a new album called Moon Music. The opening verses float in on the backs of piano notes: Once upon a time, I tried to get myself together, be more like the sky, and welcome every kind of weather. It is easier, of course, to do this when you are part of a community.
And now, at MAX, you are in the Adobe community. You are making the constellations. And you are connecting the dots between yourself and each other and the creative realms. It is written in the stars. As astronauts dance, courtesy of tracked masks, you know that you hold a cosmic capability in your future.
Thanks for your own moon music, MAX.
