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| June 29, 2008 | |
| Cinegear 2008 | |
by Tim Blackmore
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Adam Wilt and I went down to LA for Cinegear June 19-21. The show was held on the Universal Studios
backlot in record setting heat - up to 108 degrees. We saw a lot of thoroughly baked equipment
and overheated production folk. Water and Slushy sales were brisk, but the hot weather really was a challenge.
After taking some time to cool off, here's my report on some of the highlights of the event.
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Everywhere you looked there were carefully machined counterweighted metal arms hefting lights and mics
and cameras into near collisions with the crowds on the dusty paths between booths and the Old West themed streets.
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The fountain looked great but what it really needed was to have big blocks of ice floating in the basin.
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Have you been frustrated because there are no moving lights in your evening sky? LRX has the answer. Their
robotic lighting booms will convince just about anyone that there are UFOs in the neighborhood.
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And if those ultra long reach heavyweights aren't what you are looking for,
Airstar, with its helium filled light balloons, is always at the
ready to help brighten up your production space. This bubble with an egg crate is a baby AirStar that gets
inflated and mounted on a stand, but most of the rest of the light in the foreground comes from a big
floating Air Tube overhead.
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Panasonic's exhibits are always busy, friendly, and helpful, and this show was no exception,
in spite of the heat that had us all scrambling to get into the shade. Adam had a look at the newest cameras
and monitors in their line.
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Lumapanel's T8 fixtures create a (blissfully) cool wall of soft light in the (thankfully) air-conditioned central tent.
I thought the KinoFlo Vista Beams were big lights, but these guys really start to add up to a LOT of light when you tie together 6 or 8
of them.
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The bywords at CineGear this year were HOT and BIG. Great big stands, big booms, big jibs,
big dollies, and big HMI fixtures like this one at the American Grip booth. We picked up a couple rolling
junior stands from American two weeks ago so it was nice to meet the guys at the booth and have
a close look at some of the rest of their line.
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Just about any paint job would look like this after a couple summers on this bright hot backlot.
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Other interesting finds:
- Finally! Software from GlueTools that will make it easy for us to take
Red One files directly into Final Cut Pro.
- The amazingly well thought out and constructed Cantar-X2 field recorder and mixer from Aaton.
- Production versions of the awesome portable Codex video recorder.
- A first look at the wide roll RoscoView polarizing material in action. Sweet!
- The new Dalsa digital camera.
- Lots of support gear and interfaces designed expressly for the Red One camera.
- Sony's latest very fine wireless microphones.
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