Seminole Productions is an auxiliary of the College of Communication at Florida State University, and serves as the in-house production company for the school. Primarily working for the Athletic department, this award-winning department produces everything from coaches' shows to work for agencies for the state of Florida. As an early adopter of 3D Arsenal™, we recently sat down with Robert Levine, Director of Production, to find out how the program fits into their workflow.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your history with video?
I'm 51 years old and happily married to my childhood sweetheart Deborah. We have one son, Jeff (21), who works down the hall from me here at FSU. He's a senior PA with Seminole Productions.

I got started in video working as a master control operator at a local low power TV station here in town back in '85. Worked my way up the ladder taking on any job at the station for the experience and eventually became Promotion / Program Director. Learned to edit and shoot through that experience. We used ¾" video tape machines and Sony M3 and M7 Cameras back then... those we're the dark times... before digital video and all things NewTek. :>))

My first experience with a computer was on an old Apple IIe that the station had sitting in a corner collecting dust. I was fascinated by that little computer, cleaned it up and started using it to manage the stations movie database. I took the computer to a local vendor for some upgrades and one of their sales guys showed me a new computer they had... a Commodore Amiga A1000. Coolest thing I had ever seen, at that point in time, I knew I had to have one. Well, being a new dad I didn't have money for a computer, but the computer store needed some help building a midi-box they had developed for the A1000 so I worked part time for them and took my pay in the form of hardware and software. Man... I built a lot of midi-boxes to pay for that A1000... and there was always some new piece of software I just had to have.

A former boss of mine from the TV station was working at Florida State University and he called me up one day and said he needed someone to manage the equipment and facilities for the College of Communication and would I be interested? I said yes and as they say the rest is history. I've been at FSU about 14 years now.

What does being the Director of Production Support at FSU entail?
I work for the College of Communication at Florida State University. My main job is the management of all the equipment and facilities for the College and Seminole Productions. Seminole Productions is an auxiliary of the College of Communication. In essence they are our in-house professional production company. Their main client here at FSU is the Athletic department. They produce all the coaches' shows in addition to production work for various campus departments and state of Florida agencies. They have a fulltime pro staff of five very talented folks and have won numerous awards for the quality of their work. The staff participates in the course offerings to our students and many students do work for SP as sort of an in-house internship.

I also co-teach a course entitled Computer Graphics and Animation for Television. The course covers, Intro Photoshop, LightWave 3D and After Effects. Two of my former students went on to work in the industry and have their share of awards and accolades as CG artists. I take zero credit for their artistic talents but I'm proud of the time I spent showing them LightWave.

How were you first introduced to 3D Arsenal?
Well... Ralph Messana and I go way... back! Seems like we've been friends for ages... not bosom buds or anything like that but friends. So I guess just before Ralph and Don left NewTek for a while and started Toasterdudes. I heard about 3D Arsenal. I'd had Logo Wizard and Scene Machine for LightWave on the Amiga and always hoped someone would do a modern version of those programs. I purchased the programs as separate applications before the guys bundled them as 3D Arsenal Creation Theater.

What kinds of projects are you using 3D Arsenal for?
We use 3D Arsneal for an array of projects, including title effects, show opens, end credits, resume reels, in-class projects and presentations.

Did you have any experience with 3D before using 3D Arsenal?
Yes. I've been using LightWave since its initial release as part of the Amiga based Video Toaster suite up through the current 9.0 version. I don't do much Character Animation but I use LightWave for a variety of production work from creating animated backgrounds and lower thirds, flying logos, text creation and animation, 2D and 3D CG work.

What feature of 3D Arsenal do you like the most?
I think the strength of 3D Arsenal is that it's really adaptable to your comfort level with LightWave. You can load a preset and go with it as is or you can go in and tweak pretty much every setting or just riff off the preset to create a new animation of your very own. There's a good variety in the presets as well. Pretty good value for the dollar. The version with LightWave 7.5 is a nice touch. My favorite feature would be the Easy Text plug-in that comes with the program. LightWave v9 has some new text tools that add some of those Easy Text features, but Easy Text is a great time saver.

What feature of 3D Arsenal do you like the most?
Well... as we're using the product in an educational setting that does not really apply. I guess the closest comparison I could give you is from the class I teach. I usually devote four 1-hour class sessions on simple logo creation and basic animation techniques with LightWave. With 3D Arsenal I can have my students up and running in one class session.

Currently, I still teach them how to do the work from scratch and then show them 3D Arsenal. This gives my students the best of both possible worlds. In addition, I'm often asked by other instructors to give a crash course in Photoshop, After Effects and LightWave. 3D Arsenal makes the crash course in LightWave a piece of cake.

In a production pipeline I have no doubt that 3D Arsenal could pay for itself in one or two jobs depending on a company's rate card.

What makes 3D Arsenal different from other 3D Applications?
No other 3D Animation program has a product that automates both logo design and animation using the host application the way that 3D Arsenal does. No other application provides high quality 3D production elements the way that 3D Arsenal does. 3D Arsenal lets you focus on the creative aspects of your production by taking care of the technical stuff for you. It works with any NLE product out there and you can also take any output from 3D Arsenal into other graphics applications.

3D Arsenal helps lightwave retain it's TV production roots. None of the other 3D applications offer anything like 3D Arsenal to the average video/production guy. The perception is often that video guys are just too dumb to get 3D and sadly some video guys go out of their way to foster that perception.

The truth is, most don't have the time to invest in learning the application. LightWave is already the easiest of these apps to master and 3D Arsenal makes it even easier. Given the age of many of my students they are all very visually oriented. Computers and software are common place items they take for granted and use every day. They are use to the many forms icons take on, but many prefer a button that says what it does vs. having to decipher some icons heiroglyph, so they appreciate LightWave's interface all the more. A button that says "Rotate" is better than oen with the eyeball and two arrows in a circle with the moon in the 7th house... yada, yada, yada! :>)

Do you have any advice for someone new to the video industry?
Practice your craft and set aside time to master your applications.

Production, in whatever form, is best learned by doing. You can't lean production out of a book. Textbooks are wonderful tools and College degree programs are great starting points, but you learn by doing so don't be afraid to practive your craft. The students in our program shoot a lot of bad video before they start to bring back good video. Don't be afraid to take on small low paying projects to hone your skills. Doing freebees for family members is often a good way to practice.

Master your applications. Technology reinvents itself every three months these days and trying to keep up with all the changes can be a daunting task. Don't get bogged down in having the lastest software and hardware. Your time and money are better spend learning the hardware and software you currently have. Does that mean you should not keep your production software up to date... of course not! It means set aside time each week to sit down and learn something new from your software and hardware.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Rob!

To learn more about the FSU College of Communication, visit their website: comm.FSU.edu/CommDept