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 Adobe Premiere Pro Project Manager Al Mooney does another great Vegas performance. This column is late. I know that. I got back to my hotel at 12:30am from the annual Super Meet, held this year at the Rio Hotel's Amazon Ballroom. I've been trying to do see more of the show, output the pictures and write this witty and at times personal report. I wanted to devote this post to the Super Meet, which in the past got a paragraph at the end of our annual NAB reports. To me, it's the best night of NAB week. The annual meeting of the editors tribes. Michael Horton and his crew do a bang-up job and work their butts off each year. Last night was wonderful and not a technical glitch to speak of. It was perfect. Hats off to the tech crew that worked the Rio Ballroom. You rocked. Why is the Super Meet so important to me? We all live in our own "worlds" at times. For me, I live in Hawaii on the island of Molokai. Find it on a map. It's really is it's own "world". Yes, I have slow Internet which they call (and charge us for) broadband. We have cell phones too that work on parts of the island if you're under the right palm tree. (We don't even have a stop light on the whole island.) Even though I'm in touch with the "outside" world everyday, It's important for all of us to get together in person at least once a year in one place and have that solidarity, which was the theme of last night's show. It a good thing to have companies like those at the show last night that now realize how beneficial it is to the users and their bottom line to build what we can use and not dictate down to us how we should we working. (Wasn't there a large company in particular who tried that and had a somewhat large backlash from professional apps users?) The Super Meet always educates me to different segments of our industry. Even areas I really have no experience in.  Scott Squires, left and Scott Ross, right talk about the sad state of the Visual Effects business. Take Scott Squires and Scott Ross the Academy Award-winning Visual Effects specialists who had a fascinating (and very entertaining) presentation on the VFX business. It blew my mind about how big studios take advantage of the extremely talented visual effects experts who make many of today Hollywood films happen and believable. It broke my heart to hear what's been going on in their world - and my biggest visual effect is making pan and scan moves on a still image.  A weary voiced Stu Maschwitz from Red Giant. Red Giant's Stu Maschwitz talked about the industry and showed Red Giant's new Bullet Proof software. Red Giant is one of those companies that listens to it's users and updates accordingly. It's nice to be able to speak directly with the developers on the show floor. I've been using their Magic Bullet Looks and other software products for a few years now. They also have good email response to questions and ideas. MOVI ME  The Movi shoots some pesky still photographer shooting the Movi.  Vince Laforet and camera operator on the Super Meet stage shooting live. Vincent Laforet made a pre-show unscheduled visit to the venue to perform a live moving demo of the new Movi three-axis stabilized camera gimbal from Freefly Systems. It's a pretty cool device but not for those on a limited budget. $15,000. Vest to hold the rig over long periods of time not included. Footage output: priceless. Start pumping iron now. Roger shot a nice little video of the whole thing on his iPhone. http://youtu.be/6VDb1xX0JVE ADOBE  Adobe's Al Mooney shows the new features of After Effects. Premiere Pro Product Manger Al Mooney made a return visit to the Super Meet stage this year and wowed the crowd with new features of the upgraded CS Suite. I use CS and things just keep getting better and better. Plus they really do listen to users. Enough said. Just get the upgrade and edit. MISC STUFF Also on the agenda were Blackmagic Design's Alexis Van Hurkman who showed a very new Resolve 10 that looked sort of like a easier to use editing program that still is the professional colorist's software program of choice. Avid's Bob Russo showed a new update to Media Composer. Very cool presentation of actual use of Autodesk Smoke by filmmaker Anthony Brownmoore and Marc-André Ferguson THE RAFFLE  Another happy raffle winner. Not me. My record continues in the World Famous Super Meet Raffle. I won ZERO in the raffle. I couldn't even get blue balls - and all of you who attended last night know what I'm talking about. You had to be there. Memo to Horton - I'll be back. DIRCK HALSTEAD And in other NAB news....Dirck Halstead was seen on the exhibit floor yesterday with his team of security personal who kept most of the media away. I managed to get off two quick shots of the elusive videojournalist icon recluse before his goons pushed me aside. More to come on this matter. I'm determined to get a good shot before he leaves town.   Misc Photos Section:  LACPUG's Michael Horton talks to his peeps.  The calm before the storm.  Video guys shooting pictures one-handed....I'm impressed.  Michael Horton and a Montreal Users Group Member. Nice hat.  Speaking of nice hats...or is that his real hair? Co-host Dan Bérubé. #30 The Digital Journalist NAB 2013 Coverage: |
 
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