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FITC Amsterdam Day 2

At the end of day 1, there was a party where the band of professional Flash users called Phlash5 performed. This turned into a memorable evening and combined with a rainy morning the turnup was a little slow in the first sessions of day 2.

By Jens Brynildsen and Martin Jacobsen

This was the first time I got to see Phlash 5, and it was great fun! They have a really good drive and a kind of Blues Brothers style to them. The opening number was what Aral referred to as maybe the first song written for an Open Source software (Papervision3D) (mobile phone video posted here). Thanks to a open bar sponsored by Influxis, many attendees got to bed late this eve as well, but with a program packed with good presentations you really wanted to get back to the event as soon as possible.

Jared Tarbell

At Flash On The Beach, Jared totally controlled the audience with his presentation. I was thinking of checking out Lee Brimelow's presentation on AIR, but I was really curious to see if Jared had something new. He had.

He started off talking about Circles. In nature. In geometry. In patterns. Jared's sessions might just as well have been called "making math beautiful" or how to see math in the world around you. From how seeds on a strawberry are arranged to how to create "eyes". In this session, he also detailed the process of making one of his pieces - the Mother orb. For every major iteration, he did a screenshot and explained how the project evolved from a simple circle to a complex and beautiful structure that's a work of art in itself.

Photo by Marc Thiele

It's really great to see him being able to pull off yet another stunning presentation in such a short amount of time with almost only new content. Very few of the presenters on "the conference track" are able to do this. My next session should have been Andre Michelle's session on "Making real music with Flash", but the session was totally packed and it was impossible to get in. Andre and Joe Ebert is launching a music creation service called Hobnox in just a few days and this session was the first chance to get a peek at it.

Branden Hall

Brandens talk was titled "Coding Jigs; work smarter, not harder" and we're all familiar with the theory of creating reusable snippets and classes for functionality we repeatedly need. However if you're anything like me you frequently fail to practice what you preach.

Borrowing a metaphor from woodworking where adepts frequently create ad-hoc tools called "Jigs", Branden Hall offers both deep insight and refreshing perspective on the subject. Not only did we get to witness some pretty impressive Jigs of Brandens own devising, he also touched on both the object-oriented principles for making your Jigs truly reusable and a brief exploration of how you might go about convincing your boss to allow time to develop them.

Robert L. Peters

Purporting to give a talk about "best practices in design and visual communication" Robert L. Peters used his own "manifest" as the starting point for an hour of refreshing visual inspiration. Being an old (and accomplished) hand in the world of graphic design Peters shared freely of his considerable collection of inspirational nuggets ranging from celebrated works of design to amusing snapshots from his own travels.

While not related directly to Flash (and maybe partly because it wasn't) this presentation was more than worthwhile whether you code or design.

Nikola Stumpo

Niko is the visual designer and known in the Flash and design community as AbnormalBehaviorChild. He does both static and motion graphics with very distinct, but still varied look. He showed off a series of both commercial and personal projects that were really inspirational. I can't really explain why this low-key session was so nice. It's one of those "you had to be there" since it's a mix of visuals and audio.

Nico showed a very nice example of how a personal project turned from still images to animation, from animation to a full line of clothes (using the designs) as well as other side-projects. From a fully digital standpoint, he's ended up designing and opening stores featuring his personal designs on anything from t-shirts, USB Sticks to surfboards

Being at conferences it's always hard to select what sessions to go to. For my next session, I had to choose between seeing Ralph Hauwert on Flash 2D / 3D Effects or G'Monk. I've been to so many conferences where Bradleys spoken and I've always selected technical sessions instead. Time for some variation.

G'Munk

Bradley Grosh is a one-man production house specializing in Motion Graphics. From beer ads to wind-up toys having sex this session was a seriously entertaining talk. Bradley started out doing 2D graphics and websites, but now primarily works in Maya, one of the many cool pieces of software owned by Autodesk. (Who on earth did their latest website? To get to most of their tools you now have to use an alphabetical listing?)

I used to work with 3DS MAX many years ago and this session really made me want to get back into 3D. Bradley's really good at using features such as particle systems in way the creators probably never thought of and the results are really stunning. Simple solutions to complex problems using particles with a very solid style could be a good summary.

Ralph Hauwert

If you remember the demo scene back in the nineties and somewhere in your heart have a soft spot for the Commodore 64 or the Amiga 500 this is one talk you shouldn't have missed (too late now though). Ralph Hauwert through his presentation introduces you to the sheer bloodymindedness that made computer geeks in the early nineties push the limited computers of that era to perform far more complex tasks than they should be able to. The same bloodymindedness we've seen time and time again in the Flash community where the users exceed the expected capabilities of the platform.

Packed with great examples from yesterday and tomorrow and delivered with great enthusiasm and insight. A thoroughly pleasant hour.

James Paterson

James Paterson's an old favorite of mine, so my last session was a given. James did a brief history of his work ranging back from when he started with computers and working with Amit Pitaru. Their collaboration soon moved them away from their roots in Flash and Amit started building a tool for creating advanced freeform 3D models. The project started in Director, moved to Java and ended up in C for performance reasons. The result is a very unique 3D program very suited to James drawing style.

James always had an art and drawing background and his style is very distinct. Rough and childish but really solid. Their exposure from Flash conferences soon led to art exhibitions at prestigous museums /news/detail/flash_at_the_museum/ all over the world and their latest works combine live dance performance with hand drawn graphics by James. Using a custom made tool made by Amit, they were able to synchronize the fluid animation with the choreographed dance.

They've been good at getting their art projects financed, but James also do commercial work to make a living. He showed commercial works for VH1, Nike, Firewalker and others and unfortunately I had to go before he finished so I could reach my flight home. When I arrived at the airport, I got to know that they had moved me to a later plane without telling so ... well - I was not amused. Tonight there is a closing party at Club Rain that is sponsored by Adobe, so the after-hours part of the conference has been very good. Not related to the conference, but a good addition is that Colin Moock will be hosting a free full day workshop on AS3 in the spot tomorrow. I heard it was fully booked, but that may have changed as registration is still open. The next workshop is in London March 3rd.

Summing up

Flashmagazine's Mike Sorrenti has covered several of the former events in Toronto but this was my first FITC conference and the first in Europe. Overall, it was a great experience - good speakers and a nice mix of technical and creative sessions. The location at Felix Meritis was charming, but it's not a big place. I don't know the official numbers but I heard people talking of 300-350 attendees. Probably a good number as former Amsterdam conferences did not sell out. FF2K in 2002 and Spark in 2005 both used a larger location and makes it harder to fill. A smaller location with packed rooms often leave a better impression with attendees than large and half-empty ones.

The FITC crew has been good at picking location and party facilities and that's not bad for a first year in a new place. The feel of the conference was good and most people sociable though the event was obviously over-represented by people from Holland that had their own thing going. I talked to more Belgian people than Dutch, but that's probably just me. One thing I missed was a decent attendee/goodie/swag bag. Flash On The Beach (FOTB) have really set a standard there, but other conferences such as WebDU also offer more than a plastic bag with a ballpoint pen and a bunch of ads. This isn't all-important but I noticed several digging through their bags and then throwing it all away in disappointment. Anybody that attended FOTB will brag about the event because of the crazy things John Davey puts in there. This year it was a bath towel and slippers (for a conference in early November!) and the cool hat I got for the first FOTB is still my son's favorite.

The attendee bag really isn't important but one thing they should do for the next event is to instruct the FITC crew and volunteers not to discuss and answer telephones while a session is going on. Whatever they talk about may be important, but in a room where 200 people want to listen to the session, they're a serious annoyance. This was a problem on several sessions. I had a great two days in Amsterdam and for the next event I'll be sure to spend some extra days as it's an exciting city!