Friday, April 22, 2011

Where Did The Time Go?


Mid April Already? REALLY?

Sorry, I have not posted recently, but as you are about to read, I have been really, really busy. This is a bit of a long post, because there are lots of fun times to share with you.
In case you are wondering what I have been up to the past few months, I have been living on an airplane, giving presentations around the country on 3D and also Panasonic's larger image sensor camera the AF-100. Once again, I feel like Johnny Cash "I've been everywhere, man".

January
Besides the Roscor events, from earlier post, I attended the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

This is a way cool event. Of course, Park City, Utah in January is always cool. In fact, I usually pack some of my Alaska Iditarod clothing just to stay warm. (Pix of me above and snow shot on left by Erin Mitchell)

Panasonic is a sponsor of this great indie film festival. And each year, I partake in a fireside chat. This is a time to meet and talk with a number of the filmmakers and learn what they are thinking. I quite enjoy these sessions. See pix below on left.

This year, as expected, the cameras of interest were the 3DA1 and the AF-100.

At Slamdance, I met a couple of really great guys, Nick Ames and Brian Bills, with a very interesting company, PIXAIR.
The pix (on right) shows their RC helicopter outfitted with their brand new AF-100. They just dumped their DSLR from the rig to replace it with the AF-100. They commented that they are now getting stunning aerial footage free of the aliasing problems they were having with DSLR cameras. Check out their demo reel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooouvVgYdV0

Most exciting, this year we added a new contest, "The Panasonic Road to Park City" Competition. Filmmakers who had films in the Slamdance competition, were asked to submit a treatment for a one minute film to be shot during the festival. Six were chosen to compete.



The six filmmakers are: Nick Twemlow, Andrew Putschoegl, Matias Lira, CJ Gardella, Simon Arthur and Kevin M. Brennan.
Each filmmaker was given the Panasonic AF-100 for a 9 hour shooting day, and then they edited the finished project into a one minute film. All 6 entries were screened at Slamdance.

The winning entry was: "The Road To Park City is Paved With Artists" by Kevin M. Brennan and Doug Manley.
The pix on left is a still from the award winning film. On the right, I am presenting the award to Doug and Kevin. And naturally, Doug is making a joke at my expense.
Ah, these artists!
Doug and Kevin won an AF-100 to use in their future creations.
The other 5 filmmakers all got a Panasonic Blu-ray player. It was a fun event and an amazing amount of creativity was shown by every team. Congrats to all.
Slamdance photos by Maya Adrabi at: www.mayashoots.com

A big shout-out to Peter Baxter and all my friends at Slamdance. http://www.slamdance.com
Looking forward to next year.

February.
Although a short month, I kept very busy. I gave 3D and AF-100 presentations in San Francisco, Washington DC (at the Smithsonian, no less), Baltimore, Princeton, Portland (at the Cascade Mt Video Show, always a great event) and for my friends at the Chicago Final Cut User Group. Sadly, no pix to post, but I am sure you get the idea.

March

The Beat Goes On!
March found me giving presentations in LA and then off to Cinequest Film Fest in San Jose (where I unfortunately got sick, too much travel, I think).
But, none the less, the next week found me in Tampa (pix on left) and then Orlando for presentations at the Student Television Network. It is great to see so many high school and middle school kids excited about media production. And, boy did they have questions about 3D.
No time to catch my breath, just load up on cold medicine, as it is off to Austin for SXSW, always a fun and crazy event, even if parking in downtown Austin is impossible.

After Texas back to DC again for a 3D class at American University. From DC, across the country to San Diego for a 2.5 hour guest lecture at San Diego State University.
This is the second time I have done this event. Always over a hundred students, faculty and staff attend and ask great questions. Thanks to Prof. Steve Montal for making this happen. Up the coast to LA for end-user presentations on both 3DA1 and AF-100 and then a weekend with my daughter in So. Cal. (Ah, a small break). Monday, found me headed for Phoenix and more AF-100 presentations.

A day and a half in Phoenix, and then back to LA for meetings at USC, a local high school and then another incredible high. I was invited to give a guest lecture at UCLA Film school (my alma mater). This was a trip as it was held on the very sound stage I frequented when I first arrived at UCLA years ago as a film student. (see pix above). I even wore my UCLA Hawaiian shirt in honor of the event. For this event, I presented both the 3DA1 and the AF-100 camera. It was a great evening.

I did manage to get home some during the first part of this year, but as you can see, I did cover a lot of ground.

Now it is April.
I have just returned from another exciting, but exhausting NAB. In the Panasonic booth there was a ton of 3D, including the introduction of a new P2 based 3D camera, the 3DP1, coming this fall. (More on that later). I had the pleasure to speak to many people about 3D during the week and even gave a 3D presentation at BEA (Broadcasters Education Association) held in conjunction with NAB. Both of these events are always a great time to make new friends and hopefully see some familiar faces in the crowd as well.

In addition, there was a section of the Panasonic booth set up with all the lenses, mounts, and nifty accessories for the AF-100 camera. It was probably the most swamped area of the booth.

In this pix are the experts, from left to right: Art Aldrich, Jan Crittenden Livingston and Barry Green. They spent the week answering million questions about the red-hot AF-100 camera and accessories.



So, at the moment, I am home and in the thick of writing white papers on 3D editing which will appear on the Panasonic web site soon.

I will post a notice here when they are finished.

As always, there is much more to come.
The Road Warrior

FTC Disclosure
In compliance with the FTC rulings, I state that I am the Panasonic AVCHD and 3D Professional Evangelist. As such, I am a paid consultant to Panasonic, and I get free use of the AVCCAM products. However, the opinions on this blog are purely my own.