DSWiki: 1998 DS Sales Brochure

1998 DS Sales Brochure Text

(added_10.17.07) Special thanks to Rick at nakedeye

You know, you get to this point in your life where yeah, money's still important. It's really important, you gotta eat, you want to go places, do things, buy stuff, maybe raise a family. You still need to feel like you're on the way up, you haven't plateaued or started down the other side of the hill or something like that, so you've gotta keep working. But at the same time you need to be working on something worthwhile. When you put this kind of time and energy into a career you need to come out of it with more than a paycheck.

Once you've been in film or video for a while, you realize the single most important thing is that you just want your tools to work, to work together, because you don't have the time or inclination to fool around any more. You've paid your dues, you've done the crap jobs, wrestled with clients, stayed up all night over and over again. I mean, you can get pretty sick of it. It gets old real fast.

It's hard enough getting good ideas. Once you've got one, you want to get it out, play around with it until you're expressing it the best way possible, and move on. Obviously, if you're gonna put together something that really flows, the last thing you need is a bunch of separate applications from a bunch of different companies that don't talk t each other, that don't get it. Doing all these distracting little dances to move your ideas across, and then having to use a boatload of different procedures, protocols, interfaces and behaviors. – Basically needing to change your entire mindset just to do the next thing on your laundry list – that's a real drag.

These days, offline and online editors – and for that matter, compositors, graphic designers and others – are morphing into a kind of hybrid: the digital artist. It's a new job description that's been evolving over the past few years. And ironically, the more film and video production processes become digital, the more hands-on creative seem to be getting. This is a great time to be alive – we're starting to see comprehensive toolsets that let you make your ideas real without forcing you to deconstruct them first and then put them back together again.

Maybe that's the whole thing: you're suddenly a lot more aware of time. And not wanting to waste it any more. It's a total cliché, but it's really true – when you're younger you don't care, you just don't give a damn, you've got all the time in the world to concentrate on whatever crazy things you want, and that was cook, it's nice to remember those days, but now . . . ?

If you want to go to another part of your mind, you just go. If you want to think of something different, you just do. You don't have to ask permission or wait in line or see how you feel about it. When you're coming up with a concept or a sequence or something, you're not just thinking about the images in it, or the sound of it, or the pacing or whatever. You're the thinking about all of it. It all comes to you. And so that's like this really good and really terrible place to be because you've go this crystalline entity, this complete idea, you know, which is great, but you're immediately figuring out how you're gonna break it into chunks to execute it, how you're gonna get it on screen in some form that's recognizable to you. And that's where tings start to suck because now you're already changing it before you've even started: uh, these guys'll sweeten and I can go here for the edit and use this box for some of the effects and go across town for others and so on and so forth until you end up with this rogue thing that's kind of what you had in mind. Sort of.

It doesn't matter how good you are – when you present your ideas, most clients are gonna want some changes. That's only natural. The trick is hanging on to your creative vision while trying to make them happy. That's easier said than done. Sometimes you'd rather start from scratch than do a tweak here and there, especially when you have to get other people and machines involved who don't necessarily see what you do, because you can end up watering things down. The problem is, you don't have much of a choice if your system is limited in scope.

You still have some traditional, one-dimensional old-liners who continue to work the way they always have. But what's becoming much more common is somebody who's not only able to do the conceptualizing up front but is also thinking at the very same time, about what's gonna happen in post and how that'll finish the concept. They want it all at their fingertips, demand the right gear, know that they want to pick an choose for each different project. This is a big change: It's gonna let a lot more people say a lot moe things and not have to dance to the same old industry tune.

Your studio is your second home. Sometimes it feels like your first. So you've got to have the right kind of stuff around – not just cool equipment, but the furniture, the art, the music, the space itself. They all need to project you and reflect you at the same time. It's got to be friendly and it's got to be comfortable. You're obviously very interested in anything that will enhance your working environment, because the more conducive it is to your workstyle, to your lifestyle, to more creative , productive and profitable you can be.

Technology that's cool is technology you don't have to think about. If it's truly sophisticated, if it works the way it should, after a while you don't even notice it. you live in it. That's when you can really get something done.

Introducing….Softimage|DS.

Softimage|DS empowers you to redfine the way video content is created, edited and finished by providing a comprehensive set of tools in one unified, integrated environment. Designed by people who work in production – creating, editing and animating images and sound day after day – Softimage|DS is built by digital artists, for digital artists.

Based on an advanced new software architecture, it is the only system that seamlessly integrates the full range of capabilities required for end-to-end production: picture and audio editing, composting, paint, 2D and 3D effects, image treatment, character generation and content management – fused together with a transparent interface and workflow. The consistency of the production environment obviates the need for data to be transferred or translated to different video and audio systems, significantly streamlining the production process. Remove a scratch as soon as it's found, change the color of an object in a multi-layer composite, add an audio effect in real-time, you can do all of this and more without having to move between systems or facilities.

Work with non-compressed and compressed images. Quickly and easily call upon tools for almost any production task. Work by yourself or with others. Softimage|DS shatters existing barriers to creativity and productivity.

Softimage|DS is a customizable, extensible work environment. Designed to help you thrive in the multiple revolutions that are changing the industry, its interface and capabilities can be reconfigured, adjusted and added upon as needed to meet the specific requirements and preferences of each project or individual.

From cuts-only to effects-intensive projects, Softimage|DS encompasses all the tools needed to create, edit and finish videos with greater creativity and productivity. And it does so at a price that makes high-end, non-compressed capabilities available to a wider range of digital artists than ever before.
















































Revised: Jun 17, 2012 5:33 pm