Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Infocomm 2011

Spent last week in Orlando at Infocomm. And, yes, Panasonic makes me dress up for these events.
One thing you can say about Orlando in June, it rains every day! Infocomm is a huge trade show mainly focused on projection, display and digitial signage technology. Panasonic had a huge booth that features not only projection but the 152" World Largest Plasma Display. It is awesome. We also had four camcorders in the booth; the HMC80, the HVX370, the AF-100 (the hit of the show, of course) and the 3DA1 (which I am standing next to). It was a good show, met a lot of old friends and made some new ones. Lots of interest in 3D. I answered many questions about the workflow. Seems people are concerned about how you edit 3D.

So now, I am back home and continuing to try to answer all those questions in a logical manner on my 3D editing white papers. I am working on workflow papers for Final Cut, Adobe CS5.5, Avid and Vegas, and using both Dashwood and Cineform plug-ins. As you can imagine, it is a lot of detailed work. When finished, I will let you know, and they should be available on the Panasonic website.

On the flight home, I had a weird experience. This is a shot of my feet, at the exit row, covered in what looked forever like smoke. The flight attendant told us not to worry it was just condensation from the air conditioning. Ah yes, another Road Story. We landed fine.

Stay tuned.
As always, there is 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.

Friday, June 3, 2011

A "Wild" May

Ah, beautiful Lake Tahoe. Yes, I started the month of May driving around the lake and as you can see there is still quite a bit of snow in those there mountains.
Actually, I was in the area to attend a National Guard event. Some of our nation's finest are using Panasonic HMC150 and HMC40 AVCCAM camcorders and HVX200 and HVX170 P2 cameras, on their missions here and overseas. So, a bunch of them had gathered in Reno to learn what is new and to hone their workflow. I spent a good amount of time meeting the troops and was very impressed with their dedication and professionalism. They had some pretty amazing stories to tell. And yes, I did answer a lot of questions about workflow, specifically transcoding, and SD card issues.
After a short one day stop at home, I was off to Missoula, Montana for the 34th International Wildlife Film Festival, the first and oldest Wildlife Film Fest. It is always an amazing event and this year was no exception. It is a week of meeting old friends and making new ones. We always bring a boat load of Panasonic gear to the event so that the filmmakers can play with the new toys. As expected, the AF-100 larger image sensor camera was certainly the talk of the event. Although 3D certainly remains a large interest to this group of creative people.
In the pix on the right, Steve Mahrer of Panasonic is holding the new 9" BT-LH910 monitor while a filmmaker tries out the 370 camera.

One highlight of this year's Festival was an evening concert featuring Grammy Award Winning Native American Flautist, Robert Mirabal. Here is a pix of Robert and me after the show.
We actually shot the concert with 3 cameras. Steve had a Varicam up in the balcony, while James Kleinert (Director of Wild Horses and Renegades) manned an AF-100 in the front row. I had the great pleasure of being on stage with Robert shooting with a second AF-100.

The pix on right was taken by me on stage. In order to sync the 3 cameras, I walked out on stage and took this picture with my iPhone. We just used the flash from the iPhone as our sync point. It also gave me a great look from center stage.

We are beginning to edit the footage now. It was an amazing concert. Thanks to Robert and all my friends in Missoula, it was a terrific evening.

Finally, I ended the month out on the west coast. I presented two seminars on 3D and shooting with the 3DA1 camera, and one presentation on the AF-100, and achieving shallow depth of field. The pix on left was taking during a 3D presentation in the EVS Studios.

And that was May.
So what lies ahead for June? Well, I am still working on those pesky 3D White Papers, I spoke about last month. I just received the new Adobe CS5.5, so I will incorporate that workflow. I have lots of footage to edit, and something tells me I will be on the road quite a bit of the month as well. Hope to see you.

As always, there is 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.