Sundance Film Festival

Last year at Sundance, Adobe VP Jim Guerard was making the further case for Flash. At that time the installed base was enormous, but Guerard had something even bigger in mind. He described how the nonlinear potential for Flash was virtually untapped, that people still understood it as player rather than a whole new way to think about content and interactivity.

Since then, the Flash train has rushed forward, powered in part by its use on YouTube and other hugely popular sites. Overall there‘s no doubt that internet video has made significant gains since this time last year. But still, Flash still has more to offer if Guerard‘s ultimate concept is to be realized. Towards that end, Adobe is actively teaching Flash 8 to filmmakers here at New Frontier on Main (the can‘t-miss session is tomorrow–Wednesday–at 2pm when Flash developer Justin Everett-Church covers how to “Expand Filmmaking Options with interactive Flash Video,”).

Much as software delivered non-linear access to production, we‘re now seeing the second wave of non-linear–non-linear access to content and non-linear storytelling.

“We see Flash evolving from a marketing/visibility vehicle for content to an actual distribution medium vehicle,” Guerard continues. “We‘re focusing on Flash for output and finish.

“It‘s happening in other parts of the world as fast or faster as it is here,” he continues. “Where they don‘t have more established distribution channels like we do video is leapfrogging right onto the internet.” He cites the couple of million international subscribers to Flashcast for mobile phones.

“Now we‘re got a much more fun and interesting problem,” Guerard says wryly. “There are 50 million videos…how do you find what you want? Video is one of the most opaque data types there is. How do you make it more understandable from a metadata standpoint and more searchable?” The nonlinear nature of Flash is part of solving this problem, so is a metadata trail that begins in Production Studio and carries all the way through. The Serious Magic purchase also plays into this with its ability to introduce metadata at the shooting level.

So the integration between Flash and Adobe‘s more traditional content creation tools also presumably continues. I expect by this time next year I‘ll be writing about the marriage of Flash and Production Studio though no one‘s confirming that now.