30 years of Flame = 30 Autodesk swag bundles to give away! 🎂🎁

[AndyBrown]

Flame for life…

[BrittCiampa]

I am 7 years old. Dad works with someone named Henry. Mom says dad’s an editor. I don’t know what an editor is, and dad says he’s not one, but either way, dad works with Henry.

I am 12 years old. INFERNO. What a name, what a job. Dad is an INFERNO ARTIST. Mom says he’s a a special effects editor, and dad says he’s not, but all my friends in middle school know my dad’s an inferno artist, and he makes Spider-Man jump over buildings. He also works with a “wizard” who is an absolute genius.

I am 20 years old and in music school. Dad’s a FLAME artist, I tell my friends he’s a visual effects editor, he tries to explain that he’s not, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. Every time the geico talking baby commercial comes on, I tell everyone, my dad made that baby talk! My friends are crazy impressed.

I am 25 years old, I’ve just uprooted my life in Oakland to move to NYC. I go to work with my dad. I see a schematic. He explains how it works. I ask nonstop questions, he answers every one. I almost understand what he’s talking about when he says “matte”- not quite, almost. But man… it’s beautiful, it’s entrancing, its black magic, its… wizardry.

I am 32 years old, writing this post in my living room not far from my flame, working at the same company as my dad, where “the wizard,”the one I met when I was 12 after hearing about all their sorceries and spells, is a cofounder and owner. I’m a flame artist now too. Comping shots everyday, always trying to be better, cleaner, faster. And my mom still thinks I’m a special effects editor. That’s ok.

[cnoellert]

Man I want that story recreated as a childrens book illustrated by Shel Silverstein

A flame in the attic…

[BrittCiampa]

Hahaha!

Audiobook begins: “Grant Kay here”

[Tallen]

That memory gets my vote to get swag!

[ChrisD]

I had some great memories working my first job as a junior flame/inferno artist in NYC in 1999, mostly involving a couple of amazing, much more experienced flame artists showing me the ropes and teaching me techniques I still use today. That Australian beer tutorial I learned flint with was great, but nothing beat learning on the job with a mentor back then. Especially that time one of them (who is on this forum!) looked over my shoulder and said (and I’m paraphrasing), “What do you mean you aren’t using batch yet?? Move over!”. My mind proceeded to be blown.

[daniel_morris]

Amazing story

[carlewurtz]

I had a similar story to your dad’s. Though substitute Fire & smoke for your dad’s inferno. Plus my daughter decided to be a nurse (Thankfully :))

Also, I was the Henry Artist after your dad left PPS!

Say hello for me,

Carl Wurtz

[BrittCiampa]

Wild! What a small world. And Post Production Services- best straight to the point no bs name ever. I’ve got a PPS mug somewhere I believe!

[carlewurtz]

Neat! True that on the name! I stopped working on flame 3 years ago, then the company I freelanced for gave it to me to do discounted work for them!
No support and it’s 2017.2, but I got it to work!

[ihatebrianwilliams]

Who has a pair of those vacuum sealed undies? Those are awesome.

I remember contemplating buying an sgi in like 2010 so that I could learn flame. I thought I could pick up a tezro for a few hundred bucks. Hahaha. They are still 5k in 2022.

[ace_elliott]

This is great!

[TonyRichards]

I need to learn to rtfp as I speed-read and thus totally missed that this was a link to another website and thought it was about celebrating everyone’s first meeting/experience, thinking that it was just about the thread here. This is a great celebratory site and having fun navigating it. Good move AD marketing!

Loving this thread but didn’t realise and so now doubly happy that I watched the truly excellent Logik pipeline/hardware/platforms and then saw the hotspots. In terms of posts, it looks to me that @BrittCiampa should be swimming in presents for the presence of his story. Great stage presence and storytelling!

I’ve only been using Flame since it was released on the Mac (though one of my machines at home is a Linux) and we had Smoke at our University before then (again since its advent on t’Mac). Myself, I’ve been using the platform (ie Smoke) since 2011 and so had a year or two before the major refurb/rethink. Before that I was a Liquid and then FCP user until before the FCPXcrement move. I used both FCPClassic and Smoke in tandem before totally moving across to the latter. Prior to that Flame/Smoke were the definition of the unobtainable and was an unreachable pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’d read magazines such as CGI magazine ('cause I did 3D in LightWave at the time) and hear about this mythical machine running on SGI. Getting the chance to start using it in 2011 was a revelation and I totally felt at home with the paradigm and was just missing the BFX nodes but loved using the modular keyer as a mini-batch with some quasi-cheats (Stuy’s from Autodesk’s great tutorial on dust motes in Britain’s Next Top Model run combining the desktop tools with the modular keyer really helped increase that readiness for Batch and hunger for it to be available) and was then blissfully bowled over when AD shared it with the Mac population. I was a very happy beta tester for Smoke and now am a very happy beta tester for Flame. I hope its development goes great guns and that it carries on its development and paradigm enlargement.

Who knows what the 40th anniversary will bring, but it better flamin’ happen! AD’s leadership is really needed to keep it moving and motivated, and the dev team are doing a great job and you can feel the love they ooze for the product and population that they are serving-savouring-saviouring. This particular marketing is also a really nice move and ought to be combined with a few other moves for outreach. Great site!

Cheers
Tony

PS the page on the evolution of the interface seems to hint (“take a look”) that this entry shows that evolution. I can only see one image. Am I missing some navigation nous?

[SSpader]

One of my best flame-related memories:
Remembering the feeling of realising, that becoming a Flame Artist was what I want to do in life and being my biggest dream (I was literally having dreams about it). Back in 2000 my company sent me to a flame/flint training with discreet logic. The training itself is not my fondest memory, as it was not more than taking the tutorials that I had already worked through at work. (Does anyone remember the tutorial Footage with the crazy-dressed dancers?)
But the opportunity given to me by my company to pursue my way of learning to become a flame artist, and this piece of paper handed out to me at the end of the training meant the world to the 20 year old me.

[Tallen]

My fondest memories of Flame was how I became a Flame artist.

When I was in my last year at university, year 2000, and we were given a tour of a post production facility in our last semester. I remember all of us,15 students, huddled in front of a monitor, watching this Flame artist show us what the tracker could do and he added a mole to someone’s face in a shot as an example. That totally blew my mind and the fact that he was the only guy inside a fairly large room with really expensive looking couches and monitors.

I said to myself secretly, I want to become a Flame artist so bad 'cos it looked like such a cool job.

In that same last semester as we were about to graduate, the largest post house around at the time, was looking for an Inferno Assistant and a CG artist. I applied for the CGI position cos I had studied Maya for one of my subjects.

I was completely overdressed in a suit for the interview, everyone was in jeans a t-shirt (I found out, this almost cost me the job, when I asked my mentors, why they chose me a few years later). They took me around the facility and I remember seeing the Inferno (Onyx 2) and thinking man, who gets to work on this beast? They looked at both applicants reels and decided that I would be a better fit for the Inferno assistant role

Looking back it seems like it was destiny for me…22 years later, in a totally different country, I have Flame to thank for the life I have managed to build for myself and my family. It’s been an incredible journey.

[andy_dill]

The first time I saw a Flame I was visiting my friend at Rhythm and Hues. He opened up the door to a suite and said, “this is Flame. It’s not hard, but you have to deal with assholes all day.”

so I applied, basically.

[hansvons]

I‘ve never managed to become a Flame artist, and I very like won‘t in the future. But that doesn’t stop me using the software on my projects because it‘s a superb NLE as well.

My first encounter with Flame 29 years ago as a young DOP lad in a fancy online edit Suite, and my admiration for the smart guy behind the tablet (such fast pen gestures), never escaped my memory.

When Flame became financially accessible in the disguise of Smoke on Mac I bit and it became my NLE of choice. A few years later I acquired a proper Flame on Linux with all the bells and whistles. That was a revelation in speed and a nightmare in everything else. Linux turned out to be my pre-hell punishment.

I know run my most beloved software on a MacBook Max. Everyday when I start Flame, I‘m stuck in awe watching Flame running as an ordinary app on a ordinary Mac now

If there‘s been ever an major accomplishment, that is it. Thank you Team!

[el_chester]

I started on flint in 1996 or 1997. Many many memories…

• learning to use flame without ever having used ANY compositing software in two weeks enough to make rudimentary comps of a dog talking for a mexican soap opera. 1 Minute of synch per episode, 5 episodes per week. That soap opera (“Tric Trac”) is currently being re-run 25 years later (for laughs: Promo Tric Trac Resumen Semanal 1997 - YouTube)

• meeting and talking to David Lynch at the Discreet stand at NAB after he talked about making the opening of Mullholland Drive on Combustion - and getting a signed Eraserhead poster

• at one of the user groups meetings on a Sunday before NAB, the Discreet engineers proudly announced that the “Optics” node was now available in Batch. It had been asked for so often and was so long overdue that nobody clapped or cheered. It was awkward and quite funny.

• the many impossible cleanups of nipples, skin, underwear as well as beauty retouches on celebrities that one is not allowed to speak about. (I don’t do beauty work beyond what normal makeup could do anymore as a matter of principle)

• Meeting fellow artists from around the world and working with them, and making wonderful friendships

• Working at Hybride in the early 2000s in their office in the Laurentides north of Montreal

• Traveling all over the world for flame work as well as set supervisions

• Seeing my name scroll on a big screen for the first time

• Still trying to explain to anyone not in this industry (especially the german tax office) what the hell it is that I do

• Being called to help out on saving a messed up a 2021 superbowl ad a week from the superbowl, and with a team of 4 or 5 flame artists, somehow making the deadline and making a decent save while all working remotely from our homes

• the many many client conversations I heard (but probably shouldn’t have) while working and the clients sitting in the back sort of forgot I was there. The most unforgettable one:
  Female Producer to Female Client at 2am “Why don’t you go home, it’s 2am and we’re done, we are only going to lay down to tape and send out the quicktimes of what you just saw”
  Client to producer: “If I go home now, the asshole might still be up and he’s gonna wanna fuck me.”

• Meeting Bill Ennis on a Discreet boat party on the Mississipi at a Siggraph (in 2000?) while getting drunk and enjoying the benefits of my employers sort of recognizing the hard work of the year before by sending me to Siggraph

• Grabbing “finished” comps done on other softwares and quickly giving them a polishing touch on the timeline to give them a wow-effect

• Bending the software to do weird stuff for visual effects (thanks OFOW inspiration!)

• Getting freelance jobs just by getting reccommended by good artists/friends

• Reading flame-news to learn

• Reading the paper manual cover-to-cover to learn (late 90’s)

• Mistakenly forecasting the demise of flame again and again over the years (sorry!)

• Being part of this community (even if I have grown silent on it over the years)

• And probably many more that I don’t remember now.

Thanks Autodesk for keeping it going. This is a great community!

[TonyRichards]

You met David Lynch! One of my favourite directors and certainly one of my favourite films by him. Love that opening heaven-hint section before the blurry-dirty pillow. Nice to know that sequence was combusted.

Cheers
Tony

[eddiead]

I remember those days fondly!