Screen Gems

I’m sure you’ve heard about the cloud - that ambiguous tech trend that mainly refers to the idea of a hosting model that can store data that relates to your computing experience. It’s that place we’re increasingly letting take care of our precious memories, homework, and now the programs we use to create our art. It’s not that complicated when you think about how you’re probably already using the cloud - when you upload the photo album of your daughter’s dance recital to Flickr, you’re essentially using the cloud.

What does this have to do with the film industry or your personal interaction with moviemaking? Well, the Internet is becoming the delivery system for most of our media experiences. Just look at Netflix traffic or YouTube views to get an idea where people spend most of their time. I own an Apple TV device that lets me stream movies from iTunes; I have Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime for TV shows.

What’s most exciting-and maybe a little scary - is how this affects the tools we use in creating digital media.Paying upward of $1,500 for a software package like Adobe Creative Suite will soon be a thing of the past. Instead you’ll have to rent or lease the software if you want to use the newest version of Photoshop - or in my case After Effects or Premiere, which are what I use for most of my visual-effects compositing and video-editing projects, respectively.

Using a subscription service for software instead of the old distribution model, with new software packages released every three to five years, is more efficient. If I know I’m going to be using a product for the next four years (I’ve used Adobe products for the past 14 years),why wouldn’t I want an automated updating system instead of worrying about whether the switch is necessary? The Adobe Creative Cloud programs update and gain new features regularly if you’re paying your subscription. About that monthly subscription, how much are we talking? Well, $49.99 a month gets you access to Adobe’s whole suite, including Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects, as well as Web developing programs like Dreamweaver, Flash, and Muse, a user-friendly non-code-based Web design program. If you fancy yourself a creative individual, some or all of these programs will appeal to you.

But is it worth the price? Well, let’s do the math. Creative Suite 6 Production Premium Suite comes with Premiere Pro, After Effects and nine other programs and sells for about $1,600 (amazon. com). You would probably use it for about three years before upgrading. That works out to be about $1,750 when you add in the subscription service at 50 bucks a month. Some users will update sooner or wait longer, depending on their patience or love of a certain version.

But with Creative Cloud you are getting every program in their arsenal - about 20 programs altogether - and not just video software.There are benefits in using Adobe Creative Cloud and there are drawbacks. I’m not here to tell you if you should or shouldn’t sign up but just to let you know where the industry is leaning. Google already is in the market on this, with most of its services being on the cloud. In the end, I think it comes down to brand trust. Do you trust that Adobe is giving you the best product for your money?

Luckily you don’t need a long list of programs to write good stories, just an old trusty word processor and maybe a printer, cloud optional.