LAFlashapaloozastock 2, the revenge

Events, Flash, LA Flash, Miscellaneous,
7/16/07

I spent Saturday in Venice at LAFlashapaloozastock 2, a combination seminar/schmoozefest/job fair put on by the wonderful folks at LA Flash. If you’re in the LA area, have any interest in Flash and haven’t hooked up with this group yet, you’re missing out on a great community.

My introduction to LA Flash came last year, when I managed to snag a presenter slot at JobStock ‘06, a networking event where local Flash talent did three-minute presentations of their work alongside presentations from studios seeking flashers. I was immediately struck by the warmth of the community and especially its openness to people with a wide range of skill sets. Flash by nature has an extremely diverse user base in terms of expertise, and it’s a great to see a community that does such a good job catering to newbies as well as to more experienced folks.

The highlights of the day for me were presentations by Sam Rivello on building a custom blitting engine in Flash, and a talk by Aaron Simpson of Cold Hard Flash on the history of Flash character animation, including his Flash Animation 10, a survey of the most influential online Flash shorts and a welcome bit of cultural perspective.

At the end of the presentations they raffled off a Wii, an Apple TV, and a bunch of other good stuff…

…and the tacos were delicious!

[ image from ccharlton on flickr ]