InstaBook is a motion graphic commissioned and launched in 2012. That year, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 trillion, and Facebook was rumoured to release its own smartphone (https://mashable.com/2012/05/27/facebook-smartphone/). This video playfully tries to guess what the company’s next actions might be.
In the same showreel as Spiderman
This video was a way for us to learn motion tracking and background removal.
We apparently succeeded well in doing so, because a few months later we got a message from Mocha, the makers of the motion tracking software we use. They asked if they could use part of our video in their 2013 showreel. Of course we said yes.
This is how our work is featured alongside masterful productions like ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ and ‘The Silver linings Playbook’.
Our part starts at 2:40 and lasts until 2:48.
10 years later
The motion graphic is presented as a kind of surreal commercial, ala ‘Black Mirror’. By coincidence, it has also become a kind of time capsule. All the features shown were completely impossible 10 years ago, but 10 years later, the story is completely different.
One obvious mistake is the name, Instabook, a combination of “Facebook” and “Instagram” did not come to be. But even this is not much of a mistake since facebook has become much more like instagram, in recent years.
Now the rest is a lot more accurate. Facebook – or rather Meta – is investing heavily in both virtual and augmented reality. It is unrealistic at this point that Meta will release a smartphone. Now something similar, an AR headset, like the recently released Meta Quest 2, which would have an app like Instabook. Where, for example. Can use a book as a camera, or use a newspaper as a Facebook feed. Well, that in my opinion is only a matter of time.
And is it completely out of the question that within 10 years there will be a camera that can photoshop live?
No, it can be done with almost any smartphone sold these days.
The more complex functions I mentioned in the video are available in the latest version of Photoshop. For the less complex ones, you haven’t needed Photoshop for a while.
You could say we have come a long way with photo filters. And with the recent rise of AI image generation and analysis, it is probably already almost possible to actually apply everything shown in my video without any human intervention. This seems to be my most correct prediction.
What can’t change in 10 years, right? What will happen in 20 years? Who knows. Maybe I’ll come back to it then.
