It all started in 1993
Jurassic Park was in the cinemas, Bill Clinton was in the White House, and I was working in video on what seemed like the ultimate machine: an Apple Macintosh Quadra 840AV. It was about as powerful a Mac as you could buy. Today, your phone would run rings around it. Back then, it felt like the future.
Los Angeles, Las Vegas and an unexpected checkout
That year I made my first trip to America. We spent four days in LA, eating at the Sidewalk Café on Venice Beach and Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood. We were staying at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills when Bill Clinton and his entourage arrived, taking over two floors for his staff. Guests were asked to make way, so we found ourselves looking for another hotel. Not quite the Hollywood welcome we’d imagined.
Then we drove across the desert to Las Vegas, with an essential stop at the world-famous Mad Greek restaurant. The destination was the NAB Show: three days of extraordinary new technology, big ideas and even bigger demonstrations.
The little stand that changed everything
Among the exhibition giants was a stand for the Company of Science and Art — CoSA — demonstrating a new animation and compositing program called After Effects.
It was like Photoshop on steroids. Layers, masks, animation and compositing suddenly felt possible on our own Mac. We bought it on the spot. I’ve never looked back.
Three and a half days to render
One of my first After Effects jobs was for director David Mallet. I needed to combine 16 camera feeds into one image so he could review them and make edit decisions. It took three and a half days to render.
Three and a half days. You pressed go, crossed your fingers and hoped the computer didn’t crash. But seeing those feeds together was worth the wait.
A little Hollywood on your desktop
NAB was a wonderful place to be inspired. Discreet Logic was showing off Flame, producing effects on systems far beyond our budget. You’d watch in amazement, then head home and try to recreate something similar in After Effects.
That was the magic: professional-looking effects were no longer completely out of reach. You could experiment, make mistakes and discover things you hadn’t even set out to create.
Still hooked
Thirty-three years later, After Effects is still one of my favourite creative tools. The machines are faster and the possibilities almost endless, but the thrill of starting with a rough idea and seeing where it leads hasn’t changed.
And whenever a render seems to be taking forever, I think back to those 16 camera feeds. Three and a half days. Suddenly, waiting a few minutes doesn’t seem so bad.
“Here’s to After Effects, and to that little stand in Las Vegas that changed everything.”