DLSR cameras and HD movie cameras will merge; Final Cut Pro and Logic will probably merge. Still photographs now have movie elements in them like Harry Potter newspapers.
If you have just one area of expertise in media (sound, photography, video etc.), you may not have a career in 20 years.
I had an interesting day at Fanshawe College where we saw the photography department and later did a intro to Final Cut Pro. The real lesson I took from all this is how close our media really is to one media. There was a demonstration from someone who worked at the London Free Press who used to take pictures for the paper, but now he also writes articles and shoots video for the website as a necessity due to downsizing. He mentioned that many documentaries, an episode of House, and many other videos were filmed on DLSR cameras. These cameras are easier to bring into the field and look less like a “reporter” is taking footage. The quality rivalled that of a movie camera too!
In the afternoon, we did some Final Cut Pro editing and I was rather shocked at how more advanced the editing tools and navigation are for Pro Tools and Logic. I guess that video editors are still thinking linearly. In Pro Tools, for example, a file in the audio bin is highlighted when the region is selected in the edit page. This is not the case with Final Cut. The timeline could not be zoomed by clicking and dragging down nor did the key commands seem efficient.
But, here’s the kicker: Final Cut and Logic could easily merge. The two programs could easily be just one program. The new Final Cut X even looks like Logic. Logic could handle all the audio on the bottom and Final cut could handle all the video on the top half of the screen.