Quintessential Studios' Weblog

It was officially announced at this last March’s HD Expo that HD Expo will no longer be called HD Expo. They are going with a new moniker, Createasphere.

Createasphere seemed to me more of a social networking site that HD Expo was a part of. I say that because after attending last year’s HD Expo in Burbank, I was invited to join the site and it was an industry related social networking site. But it turns out that they are going to do all of their business under the new name.

If you want to get a head spin, checkout the footer of one of the HD Expo website pages: “Copyright © 2009, HD Expo, LLC a division of All rights reserved. HD EXPO, High Def EXPO, Virtual HD EXPO, HD EXPO Workshops, Createasphere, High Def EXPO Workshops, VariCamp, P2 Camp, ColorCamp 101, and Lighting, Filters & Gels for HD are all trademarks of HD Expo, LLC.“ Now that’s a lot of names to mess with!

I attend a lot of events during the year, as any reader of my blog would attest to, and I do have to say that the HD Expo is one of my favorite ones. I even took a day off of work to attend it.

Because of my prolific tweeting, I caught the attention of one of the HD Expo people and they bumped my registration to VIP. That was a total surprise and highly appreciated.

Hey! If any Createasphere people want to send me to P2 Camp, I’m down for it!

The VIP pass, which is the way to go, in my opinion, let’s you attend all of the seminars during the expo and gives you access to the VIP/Press lounge, were you can cool your heels and grab a snack or drink. Nice perk for a long expo day. It turned out that the parking was completely validated too.

After a year of really getting active with groups and activities, I’ve started to see some of the same people. I ran into more people at this event than I ever have before. I think because this is a really popular event. In fact, at the first seminar of the day, Extreme RED, I ran into my friend Craig (of http://cmieritz.blogspot.com/) who I sat next to in Intro to Pro HD class, last summer.

Other noteable meetups were Mike Horton (LAFCPUG), Thomas (LAFCPUG and DMA/LA), Moy (who I met at the Digital Cinema Society L.A. Green Screen Event back in Dec.) a 16mm filmmaker and two friends from QLogic.

I feel like I know Ted Schilowitz (Leader of the Rebellion at RED Digital Cinema) and Rodney Charters (ASC who works on “24″) already, because I’ve seen so many presentations by them but alas, I’m just a fanboy.

[Funny incident last year: I was standing outside of the Apple Final Cut Server World Tour L.A. waiting for my car at vallet and so was Ted. At the time, I didn't know who he was exactly, even though I had been watching his videos on the Red.com site. I noticed a RED emblem on his bag and I said, "Hey! Are you with RED?"

"Yes."

"Oh cool!" I said, "I will get one, someday."

"Great."

Well, later it dawned on me who he was and I told my wife, "Hey, you remember that guy from RED? Well he's ...."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't so amusing....]

Well, both Ted and Rodney were part of the “EXTREME RED – Decking out the RED One for OUTRAGEOUS results” intensive workshop. Also there was Stefan von Bjorn, steadicam operator; Chris Burket from Element Technica and Cliff Hsui (Pronounced Sue-”E”), Senior VP of Marketing and Technologies, Sim Video.

Cliff showed off some of the accessories they have at their stores for the RED One.

Then Chris from Element Technica presented a TON of accessories, many of which were VERY cool. Definitely check them out if you want to outfit any camera.

Rodney Charters represented the slimmed down RED One user, all packed into a overhead compartment freindly photographer’s backpack by Think Tank (http://www.thinktankphoto.com). He demoed some footage he took in North Korea (which was hard to get) right off of his 17″ MBP.

His kit he took to North Korea:

Think Tank Bag
Cannon 5D MkII
Cannon Lenses
Some flimsy tripod but now replaced with a Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod
Microphone, shotgun.

He also was very hip to:
300 feet wireless HD transmitter an audio component by zaxcom (who make the deva) $1000
Lens baby (Butterfly and the diving bell fame) http://lensbaby.com/ ($250)
Boom recorder ($240 software that allows you to record up to 96 tracks on to your MBP)

VoyagerQ newertech:

http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php

Stefan von Bjorn: Developed a battery swap mechanism for the RED. Tentatively called “The Swap” (trying for $900 target price.) He has a website called http://redcameraowner.com

A two-minute Scarlet and Epic video (fan made), basically all of the earlier renders in a video.

RED One weighs about 10#
Scarlet s/b 3#
Epic s/b 4#

Ted says: Sensor program is moving along nicely… creation of these new products is moving along nicely… “The 5K sensor is up and running in the lab making pictures now.”

That’s about it for the Extreme Red portion of the show.

Homework places for RED workflow:
REDuser.com
Post houses:
Plaster City
Photo Kem(chem?)
Riot
Key Code Media
Sim Video

In NY: Off Hollywood

I then went to the VIP room and grabbed an apple and some water. Coffee was out and I guess there were sandwiches but they were gone. Wait, didn’t I say VIP was the way to go? WTG VIP!

I strode the showroom floor and gandered at at stuff. I was on a mission to find a backpack bag and a monopod, so I didn’t see too much, although there was a LOT there.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 11:40 am and is filed under Events and Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.