re-branding
Tis a sad day back on the 25th when Autodesk decided to re-brand Discreet Logic as simply Autodesk. Without really diving into the details of that, to me, right off the bat it makes me think of GMC buying BMW and then re-branding the two of them as simply GMC. Doh, what a cluster!
Autodesk made Autocad.. snoore.
Discreet Logic made Flame, Fire, Ignite, and who knows what else, oh ya Combustion, the caused stir in the post production industry, they caused fire, they were the end all be all of expensive godly powerful post production equipment. Sure it had an interface from hell but it was powerfull and it was Discreet man!! Resumes were made on discreet. You had instant street cred if you knew how to operate a Flame, or Fire, or Quake or whatever else they made. Flame stands out in my mind at the moment. I remember a production house down in Texas getting one and it took the podunk little production house from the crapper to the arena, suddenly they were doing spots for the Rockets on the Flame man... WE GOT FLAME!
But then Autodesk comes along and buys Discreet Logic. Wah. GMC got crafty and said lets buy BMW, they'll make us cool! And they did for a time... and then you re-branded not to the cool side but to the mundane side and you didnt do it discreetly.
I cry for the creators and founds of Discreet Logic. They always had these bad ass booths at NAB ( the biggest video production convention typically held in vegas ), their booth was snobish and elite, they defined elite. They made video fucking kick ass. They made it cool. They made Avid and everyone else on the planet take notice. They created cool stuff. The brand was mega, mega awesome, killer cool, they were the ipod of their time at the peak of Flameness.. and then they got bought.... and now.. re-branded.
My Discreet Logic is gone. The cool bluetone booth images in my mind are all but faded. The salesmen telling me "well this one is 500k, that is about 1.2mil with all the options" is done. Ok maybe not 1.2mil, but they were frickin expensive. But they defyed expensive, they didnt sell you something expensive, they sold you a slice of magic and the power to weild it. They GAVE you magic at a price.
But again, re-branded... GMC... autodesk. Autodesk is safe, its known, its ordinary. We need more heros that leap off the edge of post production mystical goodness without looking to see if they will be ok, we need risk, we need daring, we need essence, not known, not standard, not a given. Risk it! Be bold, your customers are demanding it.