Many moons ago, three Italian producers made Mondo Cane (A Dog’s Life). If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s instant view on Netflix.

No time for Netflix? It starts with a would-be Rudolf Valentino having his clothes ripped off by a bunch of crazy NY female shoppers, then cuts to bare breasted native girls chasing islanders wearing Dolce & Gabbana underwear (but not for long), cut to Aussie girl lifesavers giving the “kiss of life.”The Kiss of Life – worth drowning for…

But Mondo Cane isn’t all about sex – we see births, deaths (a group of Chinese volunteers with only minutes to live but just time to sign the release form) and a Buddhist monk has petrol poured over him and then self-destructs. Did I mention the killing of a man by a bull (cut by the censor), the scenes of flagellation, body piercing, vivisection, lynchings… everything that makes life worth living.

And so it is with this year’s NAB.

BODY PIERCING
Take this year’s RED booth – after an absence of two years, here they are demonstrating their cameras with a willing young girl stripped to the hip, being tattooed. Not just any kind of tattoo but the Red logo design.Mondo Cane 1962Mondo NAB 2011

Inside the booth’s theater, the tattoo theme is continued with a dramatic short, called (you guessed it) Tattoo. I kid you not… “String him up.” Here comes the flagellation scene. Whack! Whack! “Undress him.” Could be Mondo Cane all over again. OMG, he has THE tattoo! Fade to black.

RITUAL SACRIFICE
Suddenly it’s raining add-on recorder boxes – Fast Forward Video has SideKick HD | Atomos with The Ninja| Cinedeckwith, er, Cinedeck | Sound Devices’ new baby PIX | AJA , of course, has Ki-Pro Mini | Convergence Design.

Now along comes BlackMagic with HyperDeck Shuttle. Just $345 and at a stroke corners the market. So it hasn’t got a monitor, it’s not ProRes and gobbles up disk space – I’m buying one and there’s a long queue of other cheapskates behind me. I’ll need a $250 solid state drive; no matter, BlackMagic will throw in a free copy of DaVinci Resolve.

I get change from $600 vs. $2,500+ for a competitive box– ever seen a product manager cry?

John Abt, CEO of AJA, doubts that they’ll find SSDs that will reliably support uncompressed data rates. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?

PUBLIC SUICIDE
I can never figure out why somebody didn’t stop that monk from burning himself alive. If he were on a window ledge about to jump, there would have been a team of negotiators saying, “Don’t do it!”

Grisly self-immolation from Mondo Cane

Well he’s gone and so has the Flip camera – incinerated alive by Cisco. Alive? Yes, it’s the #1 best selling camcorder on Amazon – and they killed it.

Cisco bought Flip for $590 million and on day two of NAB – lit its funeral pyre. Their only serious competitor, GoPro, has a huge exhibition stand with a new 3D case and editing software.R.I.P Flip – gone but not forgotten

David Pogue in his NY Times obit says that the Flip guys were just about to release FlipLive:

That is, when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, the entire world can see what you’re filming. You can post a link to Twitter or Facebook, or send an e-mail link to friends. Anyone who clicks the link can see what you’re seeing, in real time—thousands of people at once. Think how amazing that would be.
Why time the announcement to coincide with NAB? Why didn’t somebody stop them? Save the monk, save the Flip! I want FlipLive!

KISS OF LIFE
NAB is full of very worthwhile products that seem to need a sun tanned Aussie blonde to go down on them.

When I met Martine Bianco last year she had a pre-prod. Aaton Penelope Delta – wonderful ergonomics, with picture quality claimed to be better than the Arri.

This year I expected to see a production model. But no… “Later this year…”  Sad.

Martine Bianco, Exec. VP of Aäton with her pre-production Penelope Delta.

And what’s become of RED’s  Scarlet?

She was announced in early 2008. A no show in 2009, nothing in 2010 and here we are in 2011 and still zilch. Assuming design work in 2007, that’s about five years been and gone. The latest blow is the Japanese tsunami delaying RED’s supply chain.

The man in the black hat tattoos the T-shirt design while a pre-prod. Scarlet looks on.

Both Scarlet and Penelope urgently need mouth to mouth resuscitation. Maybe the lads in Thunder from Down Under can help.

HUMAN VIVISECTION
Michael Horton and Dan Bérubé are two of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. In case you’ve been under a rock, they run SuperMeet, nowadays a collection of Final Cut Pro User Groups from Boston, Beijing and Beyond.

Seen here talking on YouTube – later suffered Apple mutism.

“Hello Everybody, I’m Michael Horton – and I’m Dan Bérubé – It’s our own 10^th birthday – and if you can’t make it, we are going to live stream it – SORRY GUYS, THAT’S OFF – we’re thrilled to have back with us Mark Hamaker (Autodesk Smoke) is going to be talking about  taking your workflow into the third dimension – OH NO HE ISN’T – we’ve got filmmaker Kevin Smith on behalf of Avid NOPE HE’S GONE TOO

There’s How shooting with the Canon 5DmkII made me fall in love with filming again – Philip Bloom” NAH THAT’S CHOPPED – and How Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve can Change Your Color Correction Practice with Alexis Van Hurkman THAT’S OFF – The second half will be all about the world of Final Cut Studio” NO WAY – NEED I GO ON?

Getting the chop, Mondo Cane style1962

GONE, BABY, GONE… all axed by Apple.

Nice guys Horton & Bérubé are sworn to silence. Come the night, they are not even on the opening stage.

The forums are outraged – words like “bully” and “arrogant” and “hijacked” are thrown around. Video facility owner, Greg Huson demands (and gets) a refund. His forum comment: “I think it’s a dick move on the part of Apple.”

Forum wag, Bob Zelin predicts: “Apple is buying Avid and Adobe and will discontinue Media Composer and Premier and FCP and we’ll all be forced to use iMoviePro.”

From Len Feldman’s thoughtful blog: You may ask why Apple didn’t just schedule its own event, which it could have completely controlled. The problem is that Apple isn’t an exhibitor at NAB, and many conferences (most likely including NAB) have contracts with the hotels that house attendees that prohibit them from making space available for events run by non-exhibitors. Since just about every hotel of any size is offering space through NAB’s housing office, that would make them unable to host an Apple event. On the other hand, the SuperMeet organizers are also exhibitors, so they can do whatever they want with their event.

But there’s another reason that Apple did this – it’s very simple: because they can.

WAITING FOR NABOT

Mondo Cane 1962 – Cargo Cult natives waiting, waiting…

Mondo Cane ends with the forlorn “Cargo Cult” New Guinea natives waiting for their gods to land a plane.  Could be the audience at the NAB SuperMeet 2011 waiting for that special guest from Apple.

Mondo NAB 2011 – SuperMeet natives, waiting, waiting…

From Wikipedia: the term “cargo cult” is invoked as an English language idiom to mean any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance.

Isn’t that just like NAB?

If you think the NAB Show action is in the exhibitors’ booths, think again. Since all of the players in the following stories are either retired old fogies, or, better still, stone-cold-dead, I’ll spill the beans.

It’s years ago: I’m the founder and CEO of Molinare, the largest post facility company in the U.K. – I visit NAB each year to buy the latest kit.

THE SECRET NEW PRODUCT
“Stefan, Willie told me you were interested in our new special effects generator,” says the Ampex rep.

“Very interested. Our Vital SqueeZoom paid for itself in six months.”
“It’s called Ampex Digital Optics — does 3D effects that you can’t do on Quantel or your SqueeZoom.”
“I want it…”
“This hasn’t been announced. We don’t want the press to know. We have already have a pre-order from an L.A. company. We really want you to be first in Europe. Can you come to my hotel room tonight?”
“Sure.’
“I’m in Caesar’s Palace. Here’s the room number. After the show closes, say 7:00.”
“Deal. I’m excited.”

I take Bob, my chief engineer, to the meet. Knock on the door. The Ampex rep is waiting for me. He pours us a drink.

“Ampex ADO is going to revolutionize the industry. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
He brings out a joystick. “You have complete 3D control of the picture – zoom with perspective and rotate.”
“Where is the machine – here in your bedroom?”
“Redwood City – we couldn’t bring it here. It’s still a prototype.”
“The joystick goes nowhere?”
“Just to give you the feel of it.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
“Maybe $250,00, maybe less. We’ll finalize it when you come to Redwood City.’
“Don, I’m not sure why I’m in your bedroom. You can’t show me the product, you have no brochure and no price – it’s a kid’s joystick. What are we doing here?”
“It’s difficult for me. My hands are tied. But we can have a great time on the town. Let’s go wild! Las Vegas is our oyster. Have you ever been to the Palomino?”

Silly, I know but I’d much rather have seen a preview of the ADO than go out on a date with an Ampex salesman.

We make our excuses and have a quiet meal at the Red Lobster. Moral: never meet a salesman in a bedroom.

CASH-AND-CARRY BAG
NAB floor. Different year. I wander into an exhibition stand, I’ve bought the product, know the people.

“Hey, Stefan, I’ve got a real surprise for you. Interested?”
“You bet.”
“You might not have realized that when you placed the order for your third ******, the manufacturer gave us a 20% retroactive discount on all three. I spoke to my directors and they think it’s only fair and honest that we split it with you.”
“That is a surprise.”
“I’ve got it in cash, it’s over $10,000. But I can’t give it to you here.”
“I know what you’re saying, but it’s my company. Tricia, Robert and I are the major shareholders, but I’d much rather you posted a check.”
“Stefan, this is tax-free money — do with it as you like. Please take it, but not here.”

We leave the NAB main floor and enter the labyrinth of corridors.
“It’s in my briefcase. In hundred dollar bills. I can’t be seen giving it to you.”
“Then don’t. I’m really uncomfortable with this…”
“In here…”

He takes me by the arm into the men’s restroom. One man is just leaving. The distributor’s rep enters a free stall.

“Quick, give me your carrier bag. Don’t stand outside. Come in, it will only take a second.” He closes and locks the door.

The two of us are squeezed inside and he’s stuffing $100 bills into my NAB carry bag. I can hear people coming into the restroom.

“Wait ‘till they leave.”
“No, this is ridiculous — take the carry bag.”
“I can’t it’s full of your brochures.”
“OK, put on a brave face, here we go.”

I open the door. The two of us emerge from the stall. Saved – there’s no one here who knows me. Sheepish grins all round; a hasty retreat to the anonymous corridor.

Two true stories. I can’t make this shit up.

You did read it, didn’t you?

So there I am wandering around aimlessly, looking for free hand out or two, and zap – my 2010 OMG spot! The Penelope-∆! Only the pseudo-intellectual French could add the Greek symbol ∆ Delta. Get it? Delta for Digital and Greek mythology.

Before you read on – here’s my disclaimer: 16 CFR Part 255 Disclosure
Aäton never gave me a memory stick, took me to lunch, flew me to the Grand Canyon, took me to a Las Vegas show, lent me a camera or have promised to give me a camera. They’re real mean. Any of the above, especially the new Aäton ? camera would be gratefully accepted.

A BRIEF HISTORY – ÉCLAIR
Way back at the dawn of movies, around 1907, a French production company called Éclair was born. After a few years, they built a film laboratory and started building their own cameras. Lots of different cameras, each one better than the one before.

After the end of WWII, Éclair produced their first masterpiece, the Caméflex CM3 (Camerette in the U.S.). The market leader was the German Arriflex IIC. The IIC was a great camera. Kubrick bought one. Many years later I bought one. Was it Kubrick’s? I don’t think so.

Kubrick shoots A Clockwork Orange.

The big difference was the snap on and off magazine. With the Arri IIC when the film ran out you’d have to open up the camera and lace up the new film inside. If it was freezing, raining — or if you were on a moving boat or plane — this was nigh impossible.

Claude Lelouch shooting A Man and a Woman (1966) with his Caméflex CM3.

With the CM3, it was just click – click. Two seconds flat. You could even leave the motor running! Another breakthrough was that the same CM3 camera could be either 16mm or 35mm.

Naturally the French loved it – Jean-Luc Godard’s classic Breathless was shot on a Caméflex.

Raoul Coutard shooting Breathless with a Caméflex CM3.

The Caméflex and Arri were noisy 35mm cameras. The Caméflex sounded like a coffee grinder with steel pellets. Most of the dialogue in Breathless needed to be re recorded.

I’ve shot with both cameras – “wouldn’t be great if there were a film camera that ran silently.”

In the TV world of 16mm, there was one: the Auricon. It was dead quiet and recorded sound on film. However there were drawbacks — the early Auricons weighed 36 lbs. Ouch! It was also top-heavy and ungainly:

Auricon noiseless 16mm news camera.

At Sydney TV station, ATN7 I went out on news shoots with an Auricon. No fun. Back home I owned a 16mm Bolex. With my Bolex I would climb trees, ride canoes, lean of car windows and shoot. I could shoot high-speed, slo-mo and in reverse. Not so with the unwieldy Auricon. I hated it.

In 1963 Éclair came to my rescue with their sensational 16mm Éclair NPR, noiseless, portable, reflex.

Stefan and his darling; an Éclair NPR – circa 1971

I bought the ultimate 1960s shooting kit: an Éclair NPR and a Nagra tape recorder. I was out shooting every day. I got so used to shooting shoulder-held that I often forgot to take a tripod.

Cinematographer-turned-director Haskell Wexler’s 1970 film Medium Cool features a news cameraman protagonist using a 16mm Éclair NPR…

Medium Cool star Robert Foster, holding an Éclair.

Meanwhile, Wexler largely shot the movie with a 35mm Caméflex:

Wexler gets a POV boxing shot – the Caméflex is inside a padded box.

Wexler gets a POV boxing shot – the Caméflex is inside a padded box.

Éclair’s downfall came when James Bond producer Harry Saltzman bought the company to take advantage of English tax incentives. Production moved to London and the company went into a nosedive. R.I.P Éclair.
.
ENTER AATON
Skipping back a few years, in 1967, a young filmmaker named Jean-Pierre Beauviala, based at Grenoble University, was trying to make his own film. Unhappy with the Arriflex, he set to work on making improvements, concentrating on syncing sound to picture. Éclair saw his work and snapped him up.

Jean-Pierre Beauviala

Eventually Jean-Pierre left Éclair, convinced other engineers and filmmakers to join him, moved back to Grenoble and founded Aäton.

J-P Beauviala in 1972. The first Aäton,

In ’73, he released the first 16mm Aäton, the 7A. It was like the Éclair only better and even more important, the company was run by enthusiasts, not by British businessmen.

American filmmakers Pennebaker, Leacock and the Maysles brothers, were all Aäton believers.

Albert Maysles (Aäton LTR), David Maysles (shouldering a Nagra audio recorder).

This year’s Oscar winning The Hurt Locker was shot by five Super 16 Aätons.

The camera crew of The Hurt Locker with their Aätons. DP Barry Ackroyd has the little A-Minima.

AÄTON GOES 35MM
French New Wave director, Jean-Luc Godard wanted a small 35mm movie camera, something better than a Bell & Howell Eyemo. Godard gave Beauviala some money to build a pocket 35mm camera. Godard even moved from Paris to Grenoble to help design it.

Jean-Luc Godard in 1979, pretending to like the camera that was designed for him.

His dream 35mm camera was a prototype and stayed that way. Godard’s concept was scrapped and, predictably, the two fell out.

Beauviala continued to design a 35mm camera, the Aäton 35. There were three models imaginatively called Aäton I, II, & III. Then in late 2008, Aäton introduced a spectacular all-new 35mm film camera, Penelope.

One of her unique qualities is the ability to shoot either three perf. or two perf. Techniscope, the format that was used in the 1960s to shoot widescreen with huge film stock savings.

Penelope, the film camera…

Penelope, the film camera…

From the outset, the camera was planned to have both film and digital magazines, a true hybrid camera.

And OMG, here it is at NAB 2010, the Aäton digital camera, Penelope-∆. (Delta, remember?) It’s here working but not in finished form. The production model will be ready in June 2011.

The concept: shoot with 35mm film, swap magazines, and lo, it’s a 4K+ digital camera with specs. exceeding the new Arri Alexa.

Now I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that. But it’s a boon for the rental houses. Want a 35mm camera? We’ll rent you Aäton’s Penelope. Want an ultra high end 4K digital camera? No problem, we have the Penelope-∆ with its digital magazine.

It’s the first film camera that’s gone digital.

Penelope-∆, the digital camera…

CAN A VIDEO CAMERA BE LIKE A FILM CAMERA?

In the past, video camera manufacturers have attempted to go the other way, to make video look like film. First was Ikegami’s EC-35 coming out in 1983. Was it really like a film camera? Nope. It was floptacular, the Edsel of all video cameras.

Ikegami’s EC-35 – a floptacular

EC-35 (1983) …an electronic cinematography camera that rivals the film look of 35-mm cameras- without the cost of developing film. Now you can have video convenience but with film quality…

Sony introduced its CineAlta F-23 in 2006. The film-like results were much improved but the copywriters said the same old things:

CineAlta F-23 (2006) We aspired to build a digital camera that met the highest expectations of film cinematographers…

Sony’s CineAlta F-23

Sony introduced its CineAlta F-23 in 2006. The film-like results were much improved but the copywriters said the same old things:

CineAlta F-23 (2006) We aspired to build a digital camera that met the highest expectations of film cinematographers…

Ikegami (1983) now you can have video convenience with the quality of film…

CineAlta F-23 (2006) it offers a powerful combination: the advantage digital with the operating style of film…

And ergonomics? You’ve got to be kidding. But what do you expect for $200,000?

While no one can doubt that the F-23 captures sensational pictures, it is still HD being good-old-fashioned 1920 x 1080 – way smaller than 4K, outdated by Arri’s Alexa and Aäton’s Penelope,  it is destined for the scrap heap – real soon now.

CAT ON A SHOULDER

Aäton’s core belief is that a camera should be like a cat on a shoulder. The Penelope-∆ follows that tradition.

Un chat sur l'épaule

The specs. for Penelope-∆ are awesome, a word I thought I’d never use. She will capture “beyond 4K” in uncompressed RAW DPX format to inexpensive 2.5″ SATA raid drives. For off-lining, a push in SDHC card simultaneously records DNxHD-36 for instant Avid editing. Too bad it’s not ProRes for the FCP editors. Maybe that’s coming as an option.

When I’m shooting, one thing that drives me nuts it going from bright exteriors to low light inside. The standard solution is to add stacks of neutral density filters and then take them off. Not so with Penelope-∆. Behind the lens is a custom CCD sensor from DALSA that can drop from 800 ASA to 100. Goodbye ND filters.

Martine Bianco, Aäton’s executive vice president, at the NAB Show

Watch Aäton’s Martine Bianco on YouTube. I asked her how much it would cost to buy the full film and digital kit for the Penelope-∆. “Ah, it would cost you a fortune!”

I love the French! OMG!

Problem solved: I take a $20 taxi ride with a friend. Ten bucks each vs. waiting for two free buses. A no-brainer.

Enter the Rio. Where’s the SuperMeet?

There’s a huge banner saying “Lingerie Show.” Well it’s obviously not there. We disappear into the depths of the Rio.

SuperMeet? SuperMeet?

“Back down the hallway.”

Nope, only the Lingerie Show entrance. Go outside. My friend thinks it might be a different building. We ask around.

It IS the Lingerie Show entrance:

I’ve got to tell you, the Lingerie Show looks amazing. Too bad it’s just closed. It’s huge – stand after stand with seductive clothing and complementary toys. The long walk to the SuperMeet site is festooned with life-sized posters of models wearing, well almost wearing, sheer lingerie — some outfits are so sheer that only the seams are visible.

Finally, we get to the SuperMeet location and the event begins:

CANON
First up is Canon. I sit through the presentation and what do I see? The same videos I saw earlier at the NAB Canon stand. Groan. Everyone here is from NAB — we’re all seen these videos.

That said, the XF300 and XF305 cameras look great – 50 Mbps at 4:2:2 color space. Why buy a Convergent nanoFlash tack on box at almost $3,000, when you can get this kind of data rate and color space native with the camera by itself. I’m sold. I want one – only $8,000.

Then the Canon show goes haywire. It’s kind of “forget everything I just said – you can use a Canon 7D DSLR instead – and it’s only $1,700.” Okay, I confess, he didn’t say those exact words but that was the message that came across – if it wasn’t, why bring in Alex Buono, the DoP for the NBC Saturday Night Live Film Unit. Suddenly the Canon 5D MkII and 7D steal the show.

I have to laugh, as way back in 1986, I wrote an article for Televisual magazine in the UK when I said that consumer equipment is getting so good that the line between broadcast professional and consumer will blur and ultimately disappear. And it’s what’s happened. Canon, Sony, Panasonic and all of them have shot themselves in the foot with Best Buy products that are as good as the real pro stuff.

Anyhow Alex Buono is great. Why? Because he’s a real person out on the street using the kit. He shows us videos we haven’t seen before and they’re funny. Yes, the 5D and 7D look terrific. If manufacturers had any sense they’d keep suit product managers in the office and let on the job enthusiasts like Alex do all the presentations.

The conundrum of the $8,000 video camera versus the $1,700 DSLR is never resolved.

ADOBE
Jason Levine is Adobe’s secret weapon. He prances around and shares the love. They should bottle him.“64-bit, pure Cocoa!” You can’t help liking him – well, sort of. But I’d seen the same demo before on the NAB Adobe stand. He’s worth watching twice. Three times is too much.

Here’s Jason in full flight – just seven minutes – I shot it from my camera on my lap.

The Roto brush for After Effects CS5 is worth the dance and the high kicking.

AVID
Next is Avid, and they are in front of an audience of 100% FCP fans. It’s going to be tough.

The Avid corporate suit cleverly brings in an outside editor, Misha Tenenbaum to talk about how Avid’s AMA speeds up editing. It is a bit confusing but it seems that Misha had a Sony F800, XDCamHD (A Cam) and Canon 7D (B Cam). Huh? I’d never do that in a million years.

His demo is showing how by using Avid’s AMA he can import both formats painlessly.

Seems to me, if he’d shot the sequence using two identical cameras he would have saved hassle and not needed AMA.

Then the Avid suit says to Nice Guy Misha:

“How much time did you save by using AMA?”

“Maybe two days”

“How much is a day of edit time”

“Um, er, about $800.”

“There you go, you save money with Avid.”

Yeah. Avid saves money. Now all you FCP people in the audience, scrap the system you know and love. Go buy an Avid with AMA.

Fat chance.

APPLE
Darling you gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Should he stay in Cupertino? Or go to SuperMeet? Big decision. Steve Bayes is the senior product manager for Final Cut Studio, ProRes, Logic, etc., and a super-smart, great guy. I bought his Avid book. He has my money and my respect.

If he stays in Cupertino, he will disappoint the FCP community. If he goes to SuperMeet, he’d better have some news about what’s coming up next in FCP.

Should I stay or should I go? He goes.

Steve takes to the stage with cheers and whistles as if he were the other Steve at MacWorld.

“We’re not showing new products at the show,” Steve says, “But I have a secret to share with you; Final Cut Studio keeps getting better all the time… that’s what I’m excited about”

That’s it? That’s his secret? It’s getting better all the time?

Steve puts up his first slide. He is “very excited” that Redrock Micro has produced a remote focus device for DSLR cameras. A deadly hush falls over SuperMeet — like a comedian coming on stage to huge applause, telling a joke, and nobody laughs.

Steve: That’s so cool… It’s really cool…

Oh, I get it. The Redrock thingy works using an Apple iPhone. Apple makes FCP and iPhone.

What? Redrock is an FCP partner. Come on, we want to know about FCP not Redrock.

Steve is obviously rattled and he has another 10 minutes to fill with FCP non-news.

Now he’s telling the 800 strong FCP editor audience that many of 2010 Oscar winning movies and documentaries were cut on (guess what?) Final Cut Pro. A bit like a Christian minister telling the local church congregation “a lot of important folk are also Christians.”

ARRI
At NAB it would be hard to miss that ARRI has a new digital camera, the Alexa.

At SuperMeet, there is one on the stage pointing at the audience “shooting at 800ASA.” The picture looks brown and murky. No matter, the big deal is that the camera outputs ProRes which will drop right into Final Cut Pro. (Hey, look ma, no AMA!)

Pop! And there it is. Big round of applause. More demos like this please.

Sadly, we now get to see an oh-so-long production shot on the Alexa. When will Europeans learn that the average American, raised on 30-second commercials and MTV, has an attention span of just 4 minutes. The average FCP editor has a span of half that. Anything over two minutes and they start Twittering: I’m watching a pretentious video shot on the Alexa camera. The camera costs $50,000, so I would expect it to look good. Why do I have to sit through the dreary never-ending video? Lemme outta here.

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN
Finally, we get what we came for. Peter Barber of Blackmagic gives a first-rate demo of their new Da Vinci Resolve color grader. It blows Apple’s Color out of the water. Personally I gave up using Color as it never did what I wanted it to do.

I saw the original Da Vinci in Hollywood, Florida in 1980. Ken Chambliss, the owner of VTA, couldn’t stop talking about it. I visited Ken two or three times and watched it develop. After Blackmagic bought Da Vinci last year, they ported it to the Mac OS and dropped the price to $995 (for a software-only version).

Da Vinci’s motion tracking is just amazing and brought numerous rounds of applause. Peter left the stage waving a MacBook Pro saying that it will work on a laptop. More applause.

At present Da Vinci only works with EDLs – so no round-tripping using XML. Pity.

Reminds me of what Steve Bayes said an hour ago when talking about interchange with Autodesk’s new Smoke For the Mac. “All this rich metadata just opens up. You don’t need EDLs anymore, I mean EDLs are so 1974.”

DASHWOOD CINEMA SOLUTIONS
I am not expecting Tim Dashwood and don’t know what to make of the red-and-green 3D glasses we are given. Aren’t those days gone? Like many clever people, Tim assumes that we’re on his wavelength.

Perhaps he needs a product manager to dumb the message down. Here’s my version of the Dashwood deal: It’s an offline product to help you edit stereo 3D cheaply in FCP. The 3D specs are there to let you know it’s all working.

You shoot with two cameras — or even use Panasonic’s new $21,000 AG-3DA1 camcorder — import into FCP, edit with Tim’s $311 plug-in. Export out to the master format of your choice and — lo it’s playing along side Avatar with regular REALD glasses.

THE WORLD-FAMOUS RAFFLE
The SuperMeet finishes with the famous raffle where $80-90,000 worth of kit is raffled away. “If you win something you don’t want, please don’t sell it. Give it to someone who really needs it,” says Michael Horton, founder and head of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group.

Top prizes are a Canon EOS 7D, an AJA Kona 3 Breakout box, and an Apple iPad.

I win nothing. Nobody gives me their prizes. Time to leave.

The cardboard Lingerie Show models are still in the hall. The novelty toy brochures are scattered on the floor. We exit through the Rio casino. A girl is dancing on a small stage. Video poker players are smoking and taking no notice of her.

Back in my hotel at midnight, I order the upgrade from CS4 to CS5. Will it really change the way I work? Maybe. The more it changes, the more it… well, you know the rest.

Hey Stefan, I want a Production Diary about NAB for our special NAB issue. You know some funny NAB stories. Don’t worry, we’ll use “Diceman in Dorking” some other time.

Write NAB stories? He wants funny ones? No way…

If you’re going to do NAB, it’s an endurance test. They shoot attendees don’t they? NAB is not like MIP in the south of France where you can do the whole show in a one hour flat and spend the rest of the time on the beach or hanging out drinking Pinot.
NAB is neither fun nor funny.

So why go? I go to NAB to chase the elusive butterfly of golly gosh, woo hoo, this is it, this is what we’ve been waiting for, all change now… I call it, THE OMG SPOT.

Stefan at NAB 2008 wearing cool 3D glasses. “Is this two cameras I see before me?”

MY FIRST OMG SPOT I remember the place, date, and time: London, September 21, 1976 — it’s lunchtime, so around 1:15.

Wandering aimlessly up Regent Street. By chance, I meet a friend outside the old BBC building.

“You won’t believe what I’ve just seen,” He says. “It’s a videotape recorder that records broadcast video, not 2″ but 1”. You can stop the machine and the picture freezes. Here take my nametag. Go inside.”

I’m running four audio studios in Soho, London. We record radio commercials and AV presentations. A new videotape recorder, be it 2”, 1” or string, is of no use to me.
I go downstairs under a centuries-old church. Is it a convention? I don’t know. There are lots of people down there, monitors and videotape recorders. It’s a little, wannabe NAB.
Whammy! I see it. OH MY GOD. The videotape recorder from heaven. A machine that can edit pictures the way we edit sound.

I touch her. Put my hands on her tape reels. Turn them and the pictures flick through one by one. Backwards and forwards. I am deeply in love. I woo her.

Now that we know each other a little bit better, wrap your tape around my drum – speed it up, slow it down. Make me feel all right! You are my queen and I am your fool.

And her name is… Ampex. Ampex VPR1.

We’re a sound studio. She is pure video. But I have to have her. I am lost.
OMG spots don’t get better than this.

I buy three there and then. Find an empty 20,000 sq. ft. building. Build a television studio and an edit bay. All for my new love.

It's 1979 -- Peter Tosh, Blondie and Gary Numan get Squeezed and Zoomed at Stefan’s London video facility Molinare.

MY SECOND OMG I met him at NAB in 1978. His name is Nubar Donoyan and he runs and owns Vital Industries. We hit it off immediately. Nubar is one of those magical over achievers who just wows you with his sustainable enthusiasm.
“Stefan I’ve got a new toy that will turn the world upside down. It didn’t make NAB but come visit me in Gainesville. Stay in my Daytona condo. You’ll love the pool.”

I arrive ready for the private demo. She’s called SqueeZoom (above) and blows me away with her digital effects.

“Nubar, you’re a genius. Can I take her home?”

“Only after the Montreux Television Symposium. But yes, she’s yours.”

I bring her home from Montreux on Lake Geneva. She cost $300,000 but pays for herself in six months.

NAB 1986 OMG #3 Quantel’s Harry, a Paintbox on steroids.

NAB 1989 OMG #4 There’s a crowd around a demo. The guy is editing using an ordinary 286/12MHz IBM computer. I’d seen random access “electronic film” editing before at Post Group in L.A. but that used a bank of laser disc players. Who wants 20 laser disc players? Not me.

The company is Editing Machines Corp. Its baby is EMC2. The picture is crummy and the frame rate is wrong. I tell the inventor, Bill Ferster, I’ll buy one when it works. “Sure, this is just a prototype.”

OMG. I have seen the future. This is it! But, sadly not for Bill.

A year later, I buy an Avid. So does everyone else. Bill Ferster is now an academic.

NAB 1999 OMG #5 Apple’s Final Cut Pro, non-linear editing on a laptop.

NAB 2010 OMG What’s in store this year? Surprise me. Amaze me. That’s why I’ll be there.

THURSDAY, APRIL 17

“Thanks for keeping the seat for me.” I say.
“No problem. You’re from England?”
“Australia, London and now I live in San Francisco.” and you?”
“I work for the government.”
“Making films?”
“No. I just work for the government.”
I glance down at his badge. He has covered the company name with white type-out paint. The original man in black is sitting next to me.
“For the government?”
“Yes. I work for the government.”
Silence. He fiddles with his 3D glasses.
The first session is 3D PRIMER. This is given by Phil Streather, who was the producer of “Bug! 3D”. An absolutely un-missable talk with 3D PowerPoint slides and lots of 3D clips. We all watch with our RealD 3D glasses. Amazing.

At one point he shows a 3D clip from “Starlight Express.” Stops it on an exaggerated 3D effect of a mouse on a steel rod. It¹s pointing right into my face. The show is being run on a Quantel 3D Pablo post system.

Phil asks the Quantel Pablo operator to change the Z axis and the whole steel rod and twitching mouse is magically pulled back several feet towards to background. Phil explains that the left and right images were separated by about 8% of screen width, which as far as our eyes can handle. Pulling it back to 5%, gives less 3D stereo but is easier on the eyes.

He shows a shot from “Bugs! 3D” where a left green leaf cuts the left hand end of frame and loses its Z axis (3D) info. He’s in the process of showing how it can be made into 3D again when whammy he’s cut off. No more time! Shame.

The next session is a dismal panel line up of the great and famous from the 3D world. Vince Pace is nowhere to be seen nor is 3D pioneer Lenny Lipton.

It drags on and on. Six or seven panelists. No riser, so I could only see two! Who’s talking, I know not who.

Now, I’m sure that individually each 3D expert would have been great but together, it is a disaster.
“3D is so immersive.”
“3D amplifies reality.”
“I love The Mona Lisa effect of 3D.”
Huh? The Mona Lisa effect? What is he talking about? Bring back Phil and his 3D Bugs! Phil you were great!

One by one, the row in front of me empties. By the end of this dreary hour, eleven people about two thirds of this row is empty. My government friend is still with us. What does he do?

Questions from the audience. Where¹s the audience mike? Nowhere. Suddenly we are all told to exit left. Hey, I wanted to see the next session about “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.” But no. Out we all go.

I wanna go back. I join the new line to go in again. No, that¹s only the half way break in the line. The end of the real line for the next session is way around the block. It¹s worse than Oakland airport. I give up.

OK. Where¹s the RED camera? Eventually I find it. Yet another line. I give up again. See the Ultimatte stand.

I do a lot of green screen and I’m desperate to see Jay Dunn, the in house AdvantEdge expert. Yes, there he is.
“Jay, I can’t add an external matte to AdvantEdge in Final Cut.”
“Yes, it’s a problem. We’re working with Apple – but they are really secretive about what they are doing. It’s tough … We are at their mercy … You know there was a Pro Applications update yesterday that may have fixed that problem.”
“Yesterday was Sunday.”
“Well whenever. It really is a mystery to us.”
“Jay, you’re the guy in charge and you say ‘it’s a mystery’.”
“Stefan, we have users who can’t get the program to run at all. Then we have users where everything works, everything – and users like you where the external inputs, like background and external key, don’t work.”
“You can’t track down why one works and one doesn’t?”
“In my office, we have two identical Intel Macs running AdvantEdge. On my colleagues’ everything works fine, on mine the external inputs don’t work. It’s a mystery.”
“It’s a mystery,” I repeat.
Life on the bleeding edge.

Dazed and confused, I wander back to RED. Wow! No line. I get in. See Stuart English. He’s the RED “workflow wizard”. Stuart and I go back 20 years or more, when he worked for Ampex Systems. We meet each year at NAB for our 10 to 15 minute chat.

We talk about the 3K $3K Scarlet camera. My first question is how do you feed a 3K signal into FCP. He laughs. “I guess you’ll have to convert to a format that FCP handles.”
“So who uses 3K?”
“No-one yet.”
“Does Scarlet actually work?”
“No, but we are confident it will.”
“Taking orders?”
“No.”
“When?”
He laughs. “Don’t know.”
“Deposits?”
He smiles. “Probably not it’s only $3K.”
“Does that include the lens?”
“Yes. It’s a fixed lens.”
“The brochure doesn’t give anything away.”
He nods. “We put out a press release today with more info.’

We spend the next five minutes talking about rolling shutter problems and ways to overcome them. Stuart says that a lot of cameras with CMOS chips have badly executed rolling shutters but RED pulls out the pixel info really fast and that minimizes the problems.

He’s keen for me to see the RED RAY. It’s a 4K RED DISC player that you give to your client to view his 4K movie. “On what?” I ask.
“On a Sony 4K projector. There are also a series of outputs where you can choose the resolution you want. Like 1080p for an LCD or plasma display.”
“So it’s a burner and a player?”
“No you burn on your PC or Mac using normal DVD-5 or dual play DVDs blanks and then use this player. It’s only $1,000. Comes out next year.”

Stuart is whisked away. My head is spinning.

Now to send this Blog to my editor, David Williams. Is there WiFi internet at NAB? No way. I search the South Hall for WiFi. Nothing. Search the Central Hall. Nothing. Is this 2008? Isn’t NAB all about communication?

Oh well to lunch. Again, I’m in line. Get my hot dog and apple juice – only $12. But where are the sit down tables? Nowhere. We all stand up eating our highly priced burgers and hot dogs. It’s uncivilized.

Now time for the restroom. This is true. There is just one urinal in the South Hall entrance men’s restroom. None in the ladies. A line of 10 or 12 really desperate men queue up for this single urinal. Honest, they are out the door waiting.

Madness. No WiFi internet. No sit-down tables for the nearby food concessionary and now only one urinal in the men’s room.

Mission accomplished, I wander back into the crowded South Hall. At Quantel someone knows me. He used to work at my company, Molinare in London. “You’re sort of a legend there” he says. We chat about old times at Moli and the new regime at Quantel. I’m invited to a private demo of their 3D Stereoscopic Pablo system. Come back 2:30 tomorrow. Will do.

I go to the Da-Lite screens stand. Yes, they have a 3D stereo silver screen for polarized light. I’ll buy it. 8ft across for less than $500. A bargain.

Pass the Comprehensive stand. Lots of cables on display. I want a lockable HDMI cable. The stupid things slip out of my camera all the time. Lockable HDMI? Blank looks. They think I’m mad. FireWire is even worse. I use a Sony HD Walkman on location. The firewire cable is always falling out. Lockable Firewire? More blank looks.

Eventually I track down Mike Schell, the genius behind Convergent Design. I’ve ordered their Flash XDR recorder and there it is in real life. At last! I was worried about how I’d mount it on my camera but seeing it there my worries are over. I can’t mount it – it’s too big!

Mike to the rescue.”Look at what we have in the pipeline.” The nanoFlash HD Recorder – a fraction of the size of the Flash XDR – and it takes HDMI in. It’s 4″ x 4″ x 2″ so will easily fit onto my Sony V1. It’s cheaper too.

FANTASTIC! Just what I want. Feed the output from my Sony V1U straight into it. Record on dirt-cheap compact flash cards MPEG2 4:2:2 @ 100Mbs. Drawbacks? Not until Quarter 4 ’08 – and only two flash cards against four in the XDR.

Mike’s nanoFlash has made my day. Back for a margarita at Circus Circus.