Mobile technology is moving so fast, it’s
hard to keep up, so let Ian McGurren put you in the picture. This week, it’s
creativity on the move.
From its inception, media production of
professional quality was a complex and often expensive process. Recording music
would need a studio and instruments, taking photographs needed an expensive
camera, and shooting video required cameras, studios and editing suites. While
there have always been cheaper, amateur alternatives, the results were never
really comparable.
Video
editing, 20th century style
However, in the early 1980s computer
technology began to change things, giving those with big ideas but little money
a chance to flex their creative muscles.
The music industry was revolutionized by
sequencing with computers – programs that mimicked the multitrack tape machines
of the past by controlling banks of cheap digital synthesisers from a home
computer. Musicians could for the first time make a complete record by
themselves for a fraction of the previous cost.
At the same time, video cameras started to
get smaller, with shrinking electronics combining with new magnetic tapes and
helical scan recorders to put video making in the hands of the consumer. Combine
them with two VCRs and you could begin rudimentary editing.
Then powerful, cheap computers changed it
all again. VCRs were replaced with PCs with hard drives and video editing went
digital. Computers became so powerful they could replicate the workings of a
music studio from editing music to playing sounds, all in the same box. Even
art and design wasn’t immune, with traditional graphic artists now working on
computers with revolutionary software such as Adobe’s Illustrator and
Photoshop, taking their ideas and imagination far beyond what had been possible
before.
Now, in the second decade of the 21st
century, the power is no longer just on desktops. The mobile devices we hold in
our hands every day are more powerful than the PCs that began the digital revolution
around ten years ago. The average new phone in 2012 will have four CPU cores
and run at 1.5GHz with memory in gigabytes, so while they may look like phones
or tablets, these are the ground-breaking devices of the present, every bit as
powerful as our desktop PCs were then.
The Current State
However, can you really be as creative with
today’s mobile devices as you can with your computer? For the most part, it’s
an emphatic yes, and in fact our mobile companions have some pretty impressive
advantages too.
Video
editing, 21st century style
Social media has been a constant nagging
phrase for the last few years and if anything, with mobile devices it’s more
relevant than ever. Previously, music, video or art has relied on a
intermediary distributor to get our creations out to the masses, meaning there
was an element of judging, and if it wasn’t deemed appropriate by the powerful
few, then it wasn’t published. However, our mobile devices, combined with
social sites such as Tumblr, Instagram and Sound cloud offer a near
instantaneous outlet for our creative Endeavours without the middleman. Of
course, this leads to a torrent of content, much of it throwaway but that
doesn’t matter; for every ten thousand pieces of rubbish, there’s one bit gold.
How else could Nyancat have become such a sensation?! Creativity and
publication has become autocratic, and mobile devices are increasingly the
weapons of choice for those wanting to empty their heads of their many creative
impulses.
Notable Examples
So you want to get making on the move?
Let’s take a look at some interesting mobile apps to help you tap into your
creative side.
Instagram
- the reason everyone’s photos look like this
Instagram: It’s the app on everyone’s lips
recently, after Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of its developer, Burbn. Part
image host, part simple photo processor, Instagram has taken the mobile world
by storm with its easy way of giving your phone photographs a retro or stylised
look, making them look like vague memories of the 1970s or Boards of Canada
album covers. It then posts them to your Instagram account, which in turn links
in with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s fun, free and simple
and it’s on both iOS and Android.
Nanostudio: As the name implies, UK
developer Blip Interactive’s Nanostudio is a tiny studio - tiny in platform,
but certainly not in features. Running on iOS, Nanostudio is a 16-track
production studio with built-in synthesisers, drum machines, sampling,
sequencing and effects units. With Nanostudio you can create fully featured
electronic tracks, and even use iOS compatible music keyboards such as Akai’s
Synthstation. For music on the move, it’s a genuine one stop shop, and at $15,
it’s possibly the cheapest studio one can own.
Nanostudio
- it really is an actual tiny studio!
