Seth Hallen VP of North American operations for Lightworks steps up to answer Five Questions.
1. What are the biggest challenges/threats facing the industry in the near future?
I think the biggest challenge facing the industry is fragmentation of the digital workflow. Managing data, converting it, compressing it, handling dozens of file formats and codecs all within a single project takes up such an extraordinary amount of time that could be better spent on the actual creative process. There are some people working on technologies that will streamline digital workflow and I hope the industry embraces it.

2. What are the industry’s biggest strengths at the moment?
The industry’s biggest strength is market open-mindedness. I think that so many incredible technologies have succeeded in recent years that people are now more willing to believe that “anything is possible”. This enables technology innovators to more easily get audiences for new technology demonstrations and penetrate their markets.

3. What upcoming trends could change the way people in this industry work?
The new idea of what I call “digital defragmentation” should change the industry a great deal. As soon as people demand open formats and technologies that streamline the media management process, there will be a great deal more time spent on the creative work which I predict will be noticeable in the end results. Many manufacturers are completely sidetracked with making their formats compatible with other parts of the workflow and users spend so much time converting files, importing and exporting, etc. Imagine if digital workflow was more streamlined and standardized so that these issues didn’t exist anymore. Then the manufacturers could work on advancing their technology and users could concentrate their creativity output.

4. What was your favorite project (film or TV show) in the past year?
Bottom line favorite movie was Crash. I think it is the best piece of work I had seen in quite a while. It is the perfect example of the writing, the directing, the performances, the editing, all coming together brilliantly.

5. Name the top 5 artists in your Ipod?
Ben Harper
Pink Floyd
Rocco DeLuca & The Burden
U2
Dave Matthews