How can you create work with this digital technology?
There are many tools that you can use to create your work. They range in price from being free to several thousand dollars. They also range in complexity from simple to mind-numbingly complex.
The important thing to remember is that tools are not talent. The most powerful force of all is your ability to create and tell stories. You need to express something, then you find the tool and then you make it. A good tool can make things easier and can open up possibilities for creative expression. But the tool is always subservient to the idea.
The most basic text editor can be used to create web pages. Every computer operating system on every platform has a text editor. There is no excuse for not being able to make a web page. Find out how to create HTML at Webmonkey or with the Internet Developer section on Apple's site. If you have a Mac and OS9 (or above) you can get 20 megabytes of storage space (for file storage, a Web site or streaming QuickTime) for free.
The essential tool to manipulate and create images. Whether you need to adjust the colour, prepare an image for the web or a cd-rom, Photoshop can do it. It is also one of the oldest and deepest applications still in use with the recent celebration of Photoshop's 10th birthday. Photoshop is made by Adobe.
Illustrator is used to create smooth and crisp illustrations using vectors which will scale to any resolution to look the best in any medium. Using this powerful tool gives you precise control over shapes and text. It's over 15 years old now! Illustrator is made by Adobe.
Director has been the standard tool to create sophisticated interactive media-rich content for CD-ROM, DVD or the Web. You can create animations, presentations and program sophisticated customized interations using this powerful development platform. Director is made by Macromedia.
Ishell is built around QuickTime and is used to create custom players that can play and control video and audio from a hard drive, CD-ROM and the Web. It is easy to use and allows you to get up to speed quickly in creating interactive projects that can combine images, text, sound and video. Ishell is made by Tribeworks.
The new kid on the interactive block has become very popular over the last few years. With each new version the usability and sophistication of Flash has improved. You can create animation and interactivity for the Web using this vector-based tool. Flash is made by Macromedia.
A great place to find out more about creating digital video is at FlickTips, which is part of The New Venue.
The cheapest and most effective way to get up and running with creating video is to get a DV camcorder, an iMac DV and use iMovie to edit. It is a simple editor that lets you create video without having to spend a lot of money.
QuickTime is everywhere. Just about all video that you see on the Web and a lot of stuff that you see on tv passed through QuickTime at some point. If you register the free QuickTime Player (for US$30) you will unlock features that allow you to save and export streaming QuickTime. You can also import just about any file format into QuickTime, add subtitles, combine multiple video and audio tracks together as well as stills and even Flash content. The documentation is very light though, so you may want to get Peachpit Press' excellent QuickTime 4 for Macintosh and Windows Visual QuickStart Guide by Judith Stern and Robert Lettieri or get the new version for QuickTime 5 in April. Judy and Robert also have their Little QuickTime Page site about QuickTime.
Video editing used to be very expensive and very challenging to do on a computer. Premiere lowered the cost and opened up new possibilities for editing and creating video on the desktop. Premiere is made by Adobe.
The editing combination of choice has now become Final Cut Pro combined with a Mac G4. The introduction of Final Cut has put pressure on the expensive editing systems which has resulted in a dramatic drop in the price of those systems. Final Cut Pro and G4s are made by Apple. Both 2-pop and The DV Guys have good resources and information about Final Cut.
One of the most revolutionary advances in the creation of digital content was with the introduction of digital sound editing and mixing. For the first time you could edit sound based on a waveform you could see on the screen. ProTools allows you to edit and mix sound with an incredible degree of control. ProTools is made by Digidesign. There is a free version of ProTools that runs on any recent Mac.
Now it's your turn. What are you thinking about? What do you want to say? What do you need to say? Figure it out... don't take too long... make it... share it. Let me know what you've made.