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The 2008 Flashforward Conference and Film Festival opened and closed with speakers using music to illustrate, illuminate, and inspire this community of Flash designers and developers. The annual conference, the longest-running and largest gathering of the Flash community, opened with an inspiring outsider, Miha Pogacnik, illustrating career arcs using the process of learning and performing a musical piece. Pogacnik set the tone for the conference—inspiring, opening boundaries, and interacting with industry leaders, who set the boundaries, and then breaking and expanding those boundaries. The three-day event closed with an industry Tech Slam culminating in a live performance by Matt Maxwell. Maxwell performed “ActionScript Long Preloader Song” a musical number with an iPhone as backup to an encore-demanding crowd, closing the conference with a community-insider’s humor. (Both songs performed by Maxwell can be viewed on YouTube.)
Pogacnik’s presentation and performance used music to trace the human journey. While playing a violin Pogacnik deconstructed the music helping the audience to understand the performance journey. The result—how to ask where am I in the journey, where is it taking me, and where do I wish to go? The key lesson? Individuals need to analyze their work, path, and journey as part of an ongoing process. According to Pogacnik, doing so allows individuals to learn about themselves, track their progress, and plan their path preventing burnout and opening their minds to new ideas.
Creative highlights from the conference included Erik Natzke’s presentation of his commercial and personal work. Natzke considered one of the top Flash design and developers by the Flash community was dubbed a “Flash Artist” by the audience. An additional highlight, unknown to most attendees, included the background content running on the main stage. All of the big screen applications used to run the main stage, and viewed daily by the audience, including the Applause-O-Meter created specifically for Flashforward, were Flash-driven applications.
This year’s conference included a larger-than-normal number of first-time Flashforward attendees, reflecting the fresh new designers and developers joining the industry to fill the large number of open positions. An increase in both global conference attendees and global submissions for the Flashforward Film Festival also reflected the growth of the industry and of the new global nature of the community.
Planning for Flashforward2009 is in progress. Announcements for location and themes for the next event are expected in early 2009.
About the Flashforward Conference and Film Festival
Flashforward is the longest-running and largest Adobe® Flash™ user conference in the world. Flashforward2008 San Francisco, entering its ninth year, is a three-day event filled with sessions led by the world's leading Flash professionals, offering education, best practices, and inspirational case studies in Flash, Flex, ActionScript, and AIR. Flashforward2008 San Francisco, developed and produced by Beau Ambur, in cooperation with the team at Metaliq, includes the international Flashforward Film Festival and Awards ceremony and a Flash-related industry Expo Hall and community center with opportunities for the entire Flash community to network and share knowledge. August 20-22, 2008 Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco.
Flashforward Sponsors
Flashforward2008 San Francisco is supported by Adobe, Metaliq, 24 Seven, Academy of Art, Artisan Creative, Aquent, Electrotank, FlashEff, FILTER, lynda.com, Permission TV, Powerflasher Multimedia, Rackspace, R/GA, Walt Disney Internet Group, Xuinet, Yahoo! Developers Network, and YouTube. Media Partners include Actionscript.org, Flash & Flex Developers Magazine, IdN world, netdiver.net, productionHUB.com, Ribbit Films, and Stash magazine.
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laura[.]flashforwardconference.com 
