The Apple Division, Renaissance Ltd
From the get-go, when the University of Otago first established its science and natural history filmmaking programme, we have relied on one company for computing hardware and software: The Apple Division, Renaissance Ltd. They've been with us all the way through the development of the filmmaking programme, which has benefited enormously from Apple's commitment to making great products that simply work better than anything else: bleeding edge computers; screens to edit with, if not to die for; and, the key to it all, the amazing Final Cut Pro editing software.
In fact, you might say that we have grown up with Final Cut Pro, hand-in-hand, like childhood friends. When we first began our course we were using Final Cut Pro version 1.0; six years later and we are both onto version 6.0. In that time Final Cut Pro has gone from talented newcomer to the de facto industry standard. We'd like to think that our natural history filmmaking programme has done the same.
As we expand our programme into the Centre for Science Communication, with its emphasis on the digital realm, we are likely to become more dependent on each other than ever. The Apple Division, Renaissance Ltd, is as excited by the opportunity to work with us as we are with them on this new initiative. As they so succinctly put it: "Apple technology solutions have long sought to empower users to create, distribute, access and collaborate - and the tools to enable that will obviously need to feature in the Centre's future."
Brilliant - now if they would only give us all iPhones...