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W elcome to 2010… a brand-spanking, shiny new decade. I have high hopes for the industr y this year. While it won't be a sudden change, slowly business will turn around — it's already begun, according to some of the pros we spoke with for this issue (see our Spots and Agency features on pages 28 & 32). My New Year's resolution for '10 is to be a bet- ter person. So next time I am behind you in line at the drive-up ATM, and you have a cell phone in one hand and a bagel in the other, and you are ever-so- slowly punching those keys with your wrist bone and collecting the money with your lips, I will not be quick to anger. No, I will instead respect the fact that you are using your wrist bones in a very clever way. So happy New Year ATM/cell phone/bagel per- son. Happy New Year. Some industr y pros were kind enough to share their resolutions with us. Steve Adams, director of US operations at LA- and Paris-based Buf says, "Since I always break my resolutions, this year I resolve to eat more and exercise less!" Chris Nelson, editor of AMC's Mad Men and ABC's Lost offers up this editing-related resolu- tion: "The only rule is, there are no rules!" His life- related resolution is, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." Carrie Shanahan, an editor at Crash + Sue's in Minneapolis, resolves "to juggle work and my new baby. Not literally — I know you should never jug- gle a baby." Shanahan's colleague,VFX artist Matt Sattler, resolves to teach himself how to dunk a basket- ball. "My former career consisted of nine years of bench-riding throughout grade school and high school. The memor y and remaining splin- ters have haunted me for too long. Time to stick it to my former coaches, wherever they are. Seriously, this WILL happen. Hope the of- fice doesn't mind me walking around in Kata- pult shoes for the next year. It's go time, Sally!" And another Crash + Sue employee weighs in: media controller Matthew W. Sandvik "plans to have a 30-percent increase in dementia by the second quarter." Here is Quantel's Roger Thornton and his New Year's resolution: "It's simply to achieve a 40-year ambition and finally master the second solo in Crossroads!" New Year's resolutions E D I T O R ' S N O T E 2 Post • January 2010 www.postmagazine.com By RANDI ALTMAN E D I T O R - I N - C H I E F raltman@postmagazine.com P O S T S C R I P T Smoke comes to the Mac I n mid-December, Autodesk released Smoke on the Mac, a software-only application that offers tools for editorial finishing, conforming, tracking, stabilizing, 2D/3D text, 3D compositing, color correction and VFX. Autodesk industry manager Bruno Sargeant says the Mac version of Smoke ($14,995) makes the company's tools more accessible to the market. Smoke debuted in 1997, and the latest 64-bit version is capable of managing media from start to finish. Running on the Snow Leopard OS, Smoke can serve as a companion to studios already working with Final Cut Pro, adding tools for grading and compositing. "I see this as an end to an era of high-end gear," says Fred Ruckel of NYC's Stitch Motion Graphics, pointing to price tags that normally cost between $100K for Smoke, and up to $300K-plus for Inferno. He anticipates a software version of Flame coming somewhere down the road too. "It is going to change the overall indus- try [and] really hurt current owners badly as new buyers do not need to charge the same prices, as the gear costs so much less." Alex Olegnowicz, owner of Toronto's Imarion Inc., is a long-time Autodesk user, starting with an SGI Octane-based Smoke system and more recently with a Linux system. His studio also has Lustre and Inferno, and when he talks about the money he's spent on Autodesk gear over the years, he doesn't stutter. "We've spent close to $1 million dollars, and I can't complain," says Olegnowicz. "It is a very solid platform.They're definitely the best at what they do.There is still no compositing system like Inferno — nowhere!" The new Smoke release appeals to him "because of the variety of software that runs on the Mac: Final Cut, Avid and now you can have Smoke, all on the same machine." He does see some limitations — HD only, and no plug-ins — but when used in conjunction with Imarion's other system and the Wired solution, it shouldn't present a problem.That said, he doesn't see Smoke becoming as popular as other Mac apps. "You really need fantastic artists to use them," he explains. "This will never be a Final Cut replacement, where you have 30,000 people who suddenly became editors." 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