FILMCASTLive!: CREATEASPHERE EXPO, BURBANK 2010.

by George Leon

After 10 successful years as a trade show, the HD Expo changed officially its name to Createasphere Entertainment Technology Exposition. The name of the trade show was changed to a longer form, but the quality of the show has remained and it has grown from a domestic enterprise to a leading international trade expo with shows around the year in New York City, Burbank and Mumbay, India.

The Angenieux Optimo 24-290.

A very fast long zoom at T2.8.

This year was not different, wherever you walked on the trade show floor, there was a participating vendor, manufacturer or service ready to give you a hands-on demo and eager to show you the latest of the digital motion picture production and broadcast industry. A trademark of the Createasphere Expo is the showcase of the best and latest production and post-production equipment and presenting intensive workshops to keep you up to date on this competitive and fast changing industry.

Horizontal 3D Rig for HD Cameras.

0"-4" Interocular. 5 degrees of convergence.

As the HDSRL market has grown so fast, the expo offered three HDSRL workshops. On November 3, the first day of the expo was a meet-up with DSRL attendes, amateur shooters and pros topped by the Canon DSRL Intensive Video Production seminar, sponsored in part by the Directors Guild of America and conducted by veteran photographer Bruce Dorn who discussed everything you need to know when it comes to shooting video with DSRL cameras.

Richard Schleuning and Suzanne at the Carl Zeiss booth

presenting the The Compact Prime CP.2 lens series.

Carl Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 lenses is available with

F-mount also. Since then, the lenses have been highly

sought after by cinematographers and film photographers

alike. In addition to the PL-, EF- and F-mount,

Carl Zeiss will soon also be offering the Compact

Prime CP.2 lenses with Micro 4/3 and A-mount.

Panasonic booth showcased the AG-3DA1 3D camcorder

and the new AG-AF100 camcorder.

A new add-on to the expo for the last couple years is The Gear Alley, a part of the expo held on exteriors and showcases large production equipment such as cranes, dollies, jibs, grip equipment, lighting, camera stabilizer rigs and more. This year, the Gear Alley show was complemented with the insightful panel "How You Get That Shot???" sponsored in part by the SOC (The Society of Camera Operators) and moderated by Dave Frederick, SOC. The guest panelist were Daniel Pearl ASC, Mitch Dubin SOC, Chris Tufty SOC, Steven Poster ASC, Paul Babin, SOC and Robert Reed Altman, SOC.

Panel "How You Get That Shot???" sponsored in part by the SOC

moderated by Dave Frederick, SOC. The guest panelist were

Daniel Pearl ASC, Mitch Dubin SOC, Chris Tufty SOC,

Steven Poster ASC, Paul Babin, SOC

and Robert Reed Altman, SOC.

A partial view of The Gear Alley

Geared for all those attendees interested in professional digital cinematography, Sony presented the intensive workshop, "Sony 35mm Digital Motion Picture Camera Technology. The Evolution of the HDCAMSR Format", moderated by Peter Chrithary and Dhanendra Patel from Sony and Curtis Clark, ASC. The panel explained the working workflow and operation of the SRW-9oooPL and the on-board HDCAM SR recorder. (watch On-Demand video of the Sony CineAlta HD24P). Also, Sony presented a 3D production intensive, showcasing an introduction of 3D techniques using the Sony MPE-200 Stereo Image Processor and the use of the Sony HDC-P1 camera in a 3D rig and stereo workflow. (Watch On-Demand video of Sony 3D).

At the Canon booth. The Canon 5D Mark II, 7D

and 60D attracted a large crowd.

The new Schneider prime lens. Pictured here is the 75mm.

@T2.0 to T16. PL mount. The series goes from the

18mm @T1.9 to the 95mm T2.0.

Jan Crittenden Livingston, Panasonic 's Product Manager gave an intensive seminar about the in and outs of shooting 3D with the Panasonc AG-3DA1 camcorder. All details about capturing 3D images with this compact and easy to use camcorder were discussed. Panasonic also presented in their booth the new AG-AF100 Memory Card Camera Recorder. The AG-AF100 is a professional compact HD camcorder equipped with the Micro Four Thirds optical system and allows you to mount any 35mm prime lens and zoom lens for an optimal shallow depth of field and soft focus at multiple HD formats, including 24p and 30p on a 4/3 type MOS image sensor.

Jan Crittenden Livingston from Panasonic giving a seminar

about the new AG-AF100 with interchangeable cine lenses.

Among many features, the AG-AF100 records1080:

59.94i/50i/29.97p/25p/23.98p and over-crank and under-crank

at 720p mode. Stores AVCHD on SD / SDHC / SDXC cards and

interfaces HDMI out, HD-SDI out, USB 2.0 and a remote control.

At the Varavon booth demonstrating the ProFinder on a Canon D7

The ProFinder can be used from above (waist level)

and accommodates itself for tabletop cinematography.

The only HDSRL convertible viewfinder. It is an eye level

viewfinder and a waist level viewfinder at the same time with

the flick of a switch. The eye level viewfinder comes

with a graduating diopter. Easy to install in Canon 5D,

Canon 7D and Rebel T2i cameras.

Sebastian Lumme from Camadeus checking the OIC-16 Denz

Director's Viewfinder and it differs from conventional systems

by having 7 integrated ground-glass markings.

1 : 1.85 HDTV - 1 : 1.78 HDTV - 1 : 1.66 S16 - 1 : 1.55 14:9

1 : 1.37 N16 - 1 : 1.33 TV - 1 : 1.33 N16

Another interesting workshop was the Adobe intensive presented by Jacob Rosenberg from Bandito Brothers focusing production on the HDSRL Canon 5D MarkII and its workflow using products such as the CS5 Abobe package (Premiere) , Nvidia Graphic cards on a HP-Z workstation. The last panel of the Expo was Cinematography at AFI (American Film Institute) and it was sponsored by American Cinematographer Magazine and moderated by Stephen Lighthill ASC, artist in residence in charge of the cinematography program. Guest panelist were alumnus of AFI like Petra Korner, Darren Genet and Uta Briesewitz.