Post/LA
Expo:
A World Going Digital
Conference
Attendees Get Direct Access
to an Award-Winning Talent Pool
by Karen Kalish
Now in its third year, Post/LA Expo, an industry trade show showcasing the very latest in post-production equipment and technology, was presented by The Hollywood Reporter February 25-27 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in conjunction with The American Film Market. The Editors Guild had a booth at the event, with members and office staff on hand to provide information and answer questions about membership.
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 Photo by Alex Berliner Courtesy of NT Audio Video Film Labs |
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Post/LA producer Judi Pulver was enthusiastic about the show's turnout. "We had 51 exhibitors and 4,200 people who registered. The exhibit floor represented areas of technology that are crucial to the future of the filmmaker and people making TV shows: HDTV, digital media asset management, bandwidth conductivity, post production and visual effects. The conferences were an overwhelming success."
This year the show's conference track was saturated with award-winning panelists from a myriad of areas in production and post. The list included 'Armageddon' producer Gale Anne Hurd, director Michael Bay and editor Mark Goldblatt, A.C.E.; Academy Award-winning sound editor Gloria Borders, vice president and general manager of Skywalker Sound; digital filmmaking pioneer Doug Trumbull; and Dreamworks SKG chief technology officer Rob Hummel. The discussions were "un-edited" and remarkably candid, with many participants staying after their respective panels to answer questions on a one-to-one basis.
"It's rare for any of us in Hollywood to have access to that kind of talent pool," noted conference attendee John Bryant, supervising picture editor of 'The Rugrats' movie (with an Emmy nomination for the TV show of the same name). Bryant attended the conferences because of his interest in asset management, a primary focus of the conference series. "Every film we ever worked on was an asset-management project, which is what we've been doing all these years. It's just another name for filmmaking. My show, while it's sitting live on an Avid, is the most valuable asset that we've got.
"All of the seminars addressed asset management," added Bryant. "The panelists talked about the different technologies and how they developed a method for telling their story. There are lots of different techniques and approaches to asset management. Personally, as a filmmaker, I like to incorporate some of them so that I can concentrate on storytelling instead of managing the data."
The conferences were produced by Paula Parisi, author of 'Titanic and the Making of James Cameron: The Inside Story of the Three-Year Adventure That Rewrote Motion Picture History'. One of the most widely attended was "A Morning with the Creators of Armageddon," a discussion of the conception, production and post-production challenges of that film. In addition to Michael Bay, Gale Anne Hurd and Mark Goldblatt, the panel included producer Jerry Bruckheimer, sound mixers Kevin O'Connell and Greg Russell, supervising sound editor George Watters II and visual effects supervisors Pat McClung and Richard Hoover.
With one million feet of film printed, 300 visual effects shots and 16 weeks of post production, 'Armageddon', said Mark Goldblatt, "would have been impossible to do without the Avid and a fiber-optic system. Everything was always online. We had digital dailies on removable drives and R-Mag, which saved a lot of time." (Six Avids were used by the editing team, which also included editors Glen Scantlebury and Chris Lebenzon, associate editors Todd Miller and Roger Barton, first assistant Monica Anderson and Avid assistant Joel Negron.)
In acknowledging the contributions of composer Trevor Rabin and sound supervisor George Watters II to the success of 'Armageddon', Jerry Bruckheimer commented, "It's the artistry of how you pull the sound effects through while incorporating the music that pulls you out of your seat."
Audio mixer/sound designer Michael Simpson of Tell-a-Vision Post was an attendee at the 'Armageddon' panel. "It was interesting to hear how they all handled such a pressurized situation," he stated. "Hearing these top guns and learning what they did to deal with the pressure gives me a better understanding of how they think and act, and what they might expect from me if I should work with them in the future.
"It's terrific that Post/LA sets up a forum which brings together individuals in the production and post-production communities where we can exchange views, vent and leave with food for thought," added Simpson.
Another popular seminar was "Big Audio Dynamite: The Digital Explosion," moderated by Gloria Borders ('Terminator 2: Judgment Day') and featuring a host of Oscar winners and members of Local 700: sound designer/re-recording mixer Chris Boyes ('Titanic'), Soundelux founder and co-chairman Lon Bender ('Braveheart'); Paramount Pictures VP of post-production sound Cecelia Hall ('The Hunt For Red October'), Creative Café owner Steve Flick ('Speed, Robocop') and Sony Pictures Studios VP of theatrical and TV sound editorial Tom McCarthy ('Bram Stoker's Dracula').
The panelists agreed that one of the most noteworthy achievements of the year was the introduction of methods that allow greater interchangeability between propriety sound systems. Digital dubbers and the efficiency of digital audio workstations were also discussed. Later, the panelists bemoaned the fact that when an average movie budget was $20 million, the post budget was $2 million, or 10% of the total. However, when film budgets crept up to $45 million, post budgets remained at $2 million. Now, even on a $150-million film, the post budget remains $2 million!
Although there was some disagreement on certain topics, Cece Hall spoke for everyone by saying, "On this we can all agree, we will never go back to mag. And I will not let Paramount archive on anything but 35mm mag."
Karen Kalish works at Santa Monica-based NT Audio Video Film Labs.
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 20, No. 2 - March/April 1999
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