Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 29, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Avid Technology is very pleased and proud to be able to be the main sponsor of the first digital creation days.
With our German office, Avid Technology operates not only for the German-speaking region, but for Northern and Central Europe, thus in 36 countries in total. We generate approximately 40 to 45 percent of Europe-wide sales in this sales region. A great responsibility that we bear for the company and our employees.
However, not only for our employees, but all the more for our customers, because, as you know, Avid is the market leader and, as they say so nicely, technology leader in the industry that we call digital content creation.
What does that mean a little more concretely?
Avid Technology now includes a number of companies, some of which, if not even most, live up to the Avid name in that they are also market leaders in their field. A few names:
Digidesign (Audio)
Softimage (3D)
Pinnacle (Consumer Content Creation & Use)
M-Audio (everything from microphones and keyboards to loudspeakers for the hobby user or professional musician)
iNEWS (newsroom systems)
Sundance (Playout Automation)
And, and, and…
This year Avid celebrates – more precisely celebrated – its 20th anniversary on September 4.
In these past two decades, we have thrown the media industry into turmoil a number of times, revolutionized it a few times and, as we like to say in all modesty, continuously improved it. It began with nonlinear editing on a computer with the first version of the Media Composer, that is, the worldwide standard system in professional editing – which in its variant as the so-called Film Composer is even a winner of the Technology Oscar.
The first revolution: the editing of cinema films and television programmes on the computer.
It will certainly not surprise you that some of the founding fathers come from the surroundings of George Lucas’s film factory.
Now media people are always looking for something new, for better effects, more garish images and also such boring things as better workflows, more efficient work and adherence to budgets. To meet this wish, our development engineers sat in the dark basement for a few years and designed the Avid Unity Media Network.
Unity Media Network is so-called shared storage that makes it possible to carry out all kinds of work steps in parallel and thus of course save an enormous amount of time.
Voila: Revolution number 2
Last year we presented Avid Interplay: the first nonlinear workflow engine. Without wanting to bore you too much, I would just like to explain that this innovation was also born out of concrete customer wishes, namely to work efficiently outside the actual creative process as well and to have an overview of the status of projects and of media assets and thus make administrative work easier.
Well, what can I say: Revolution number 3.
Despite all our innovative strength, however, we unfortunately have to admit: we only supply the tools.
That such magnificent films as „The Lord of the Rings“, „Pirates of the Caribbean“, „Spider Man“ or „The Bourne Ultimatum“ – how am I supposed to list them all? Precisely 90% of international cinema blockbusters and 95% of American television series are created on them and with them is only to a small extent our achievement.
We can only provide the brush, the canvas and the easel.
But now specifically to the Digital Creation Days!
For one thing, of course, we could not pass by an event that bears this name.
After all, it corresponds quite precisely to our own self-image and our customer group.
The DCDs here in beautiful Karlsruhe have set themselves a great deal, as we may also gather from the presentations by the previous speakers.
What particularly appealed to Avid?
For a long time, there had been a desire for an inventory of what content is produced in Germany or the German-speaking region.
There are some events where you achieve an international comparison, which is absolutely necessary, because our markets are international. Unfortunately, these events are often also dominated by international productions, so that no real comparison takes place. The DCDs initially want to show what is produced and created in the domestic market. An as-is analysis, so to speak, in order then to face the world.
For Avid, Germany is still an important factor even in our quite large sales region. The media landscape, with its production now flourishing more strongly again and therefore also demand, is again ensuring sales that are becoming stable. Germany is still and now even more than two or three years ago a good location for creative people.
What else prompted Avid to appear as the main sponsor?
Certainly the concept, which is close to real life. With its workshops, presentations and above all also the opportunity for future employees and employers to get to know each other here – even in an anonymous atmosphere.
Qualified employees are the most important thing in an industry that is as strongly characterized by a drive to create, creativity and innovation as ours.
That is why networking is also so immensely important. The digital creation days offer a nice platform for visitors to get to know each other, but of course also the exhibiting companies, in detail and in a pleasant atmosphere. In addition, the broad range of presentations and workshops offers every visitor an immediate gain for their daily working life, because here they learn tips and tricks from professionals that can be put into practice as early as tomorrow.
The media industry now offers the most diverse jobs, which can also be seen quite well in Avid’s product portfolio, incidentally:
Editing, of course, that is, the tools for the classic editor, compositing, colour correction, animation, audio editing, sound design, DVD production, but also IT-heavy data management, archiving, server administration and also training and consultancy are part of it. If you walk through the rooms of a ZDF or a WDR or an SWR, I think you would be surprised at how many different job profiles, people and personalities are necessary to implement a media production.
Together with the organizers and initiators of the digital creation days, Avid Technology is trying to preserve and increase this abundance and also the wealth of variants of the media industry for Germany as a location.
We wish ourselves, the digital creation days and the other partners and co-exhibitors a successful event!
