Flash on the Beach 2007
Wow. Flash on the beach was really, really incredible this year. I was there with some colleagues and lucky enough to work for a company who could afford to send me for all three days, and I have to tell you, I don’t know how they could have made it any better than they did. We’re talking AMAZING speakers, evening entertainment, parties, a hugely diverse and eclectic set of people there, beautiful weather (mostly)… It was like the best holiday ever!
Personally, I thought Josh Davis really nailed his talk about being an artist and working in flash, Robert Hodgin’s stuff was just totally mindblowing - especially the magnetosphere audio reactive visualisations. Eric Natzke was really inspiring, talking about his work - which is very much rooted in painting. Grant Skinner did an excellent technical talk on AS3 which I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience learned at least 3 new things from (I learned a lot, and I consider myself reasonably ahead of the curve). Adobe were nice enough to put a load of their senior guys on stage to endure our criticism and verbal abuse, and were surprisingly receptive of the feedback.
And the final talk of the conference, the mighty Jared Tarbell talking about his work. For me this was really incredible, as he’s been a big influence on me for a long time.
I’d gush some more but I’ve got to get back to work…