Category: Backstage Conversations

Technology Editor, TVNewsCheck

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Backstage Conversations

About the Contributor:

Ted was founding member, first employee, and integral part of the product development team at RED Digital Cinema, that has made a significant impact on the Motion Picture Industry, with many of the worlds biggest movies now being shot with these ultra high resolution digital movie cameras.

Ted currently spends his time in 2 blended worlds; a major Hollywood movie studio and a major technology company in the Digital Cinema projection world. He has a unique role at Barco, the worlds marketshare leader in Digital Cinema projection, as their “CinemaVangelist” spearheading a project that is focused on the future of the cinema experience.

In addition, Ted has a studio deal at 20th Century Fox as their “Futurist”, working directly with the Presidents of Production and Post Production at the studio on the constantly evolving art and science of the digital age of motion picture creation. He advises and creates strategy on future technology and vision of cinema for the next generation of movie entertainment.

Ted is one of the founders and creators of the G-Tech product line of advanced hard drive storage products, that are implemented worldwide for professional Television and Multimedia content creation, and are the most recognized brand in the space.

Before being part of the founding teams at RED Digital Cinema and G-Tech, Ted was on the team that developed and launched the Macintosh products desktop video division of AJA Video Systems, that created the groundbreaking Kona Cards and IO boxes. These products are used on a massive scale worldwide for video production and post production at the highest levels, including some of the worlds biggest movies, TV shows and sporting events.

Ted has presented on the future of technology and strategy for the media and entertainment industry in many regions of the USA, Europe, China, India, the Middle East, and the Far East. He has consulted worldwide on the technical advances of ultra high resolution digital cinematography and future of advanced digital production and post production.

Schilowitz has been featured in Wired, Variety, NY Times, The Hollywood Reporter, NBC, Studio Daily, Videography, Film and Video, DV magazine, TV Technology, HD Video Pro Magazine, Digital Television Magazine, Engadget, Gizmodo, Millimeter, American Cinematographer, MacWorld, Post magazine, Popular Science, LA Times and countless other trade publications and mainstream press, discussing technology advancements in his areas of passion and exploration.

Topic:

Virtual Reality

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Backstage Conversations

About the Contributors:

Arthur van Hoff

Arthur van Hoff is a serial entrepreneur and was most recently CTO at Flipboard. He started his career in Silicon Valley at Sun Microsystems where he was an early developer of the Java programming language. Since then he has started several successful companies including Marimba (IPO 1999), Strangeberry (acquired by TiVo), ZING (acquired by Dell), and Ellerdale (acquired by Flipboard). Arthur has expertise in machine learning, big data, mobile applications, 3D printing, and computational photography. He is originally from the Netherlands and has a master’s degree in Computer Science from Strathclyde University in Glasgow.

Scott Broock

Scott is an Emmy-nominated creative whirlwind. He has produced award-winning national broadcast television campaigns, original online series, and viral videos for Nickelodeon, ABC News, and News Corporation’s “The Daily.” Most recently, he served as WIRED’s Executive Producer for original content. Scott has a wealth of industry experience developing effective digital media production pipelines and is Jaunt’s liaison with content creators in Hollywood, Independent Film, Television, and Digital Media.

Topic:

Virtual Reality

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Backstage Conversations

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David McKimmie joined 20th Century Fox Post in 2001. As a Coordinator he was involved with the studio’s first two partial DI’s for ‘Down With Love’ and ‘Master and Commander’. He began Supervising in 2005 and his first solo credit, ‘Flicka,’ was the studio’s first Digital Cinema release. Since then he has worked with Fox, Fox 2000, Blue Sky Animation and New Regency Productions on lots of movies with numbers in them: ‘AvP2’,’ X-files 2′, ‘Wall Street 2’, ‘Die Hard 5’, ‘Maze Runner 1 & 2’ as well as ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks 1-4’ (yes 4! coming soon to a theater near you!). David works with complicated picture and sound formats that are usually in ALL CAPS like AURO, ATMOS, IMAX, 4DX, X4D, and most recently ESCAPE, and he’s here to tell you all about it.

Before Post, he worked in Production in the good ol’ days when they still made movies in LA. Saying that makes him feel old.

Topic:

Virtual Reality

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Backstage Conversations

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Steve Audette has been making documentaries for nearly 20 years.  This fall Steve finished cutting three episodes of the special NOVA series Fabric of the Cosmos. With over 40 production credits, Audette’s work has contributed to many Emmy Award-winning documentaries, as well as Peabody and DuPont Columbia Award-winning programs. In 2008 Steve was nominated for an Eddie Award from American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.), in the category of Best Documentary Editor on Frontline’s Bush’s War; which went on to win the News and Documentary Emmy.  Before working with NOVA, Steve was Senior Documentary Editor for the PBS public affairs series Frontline, where he continues to fill in as finishing editor.

Last year Steve expanded his production credits to include the film short, Nico’s Challenge, the first documentary out of Audette’s company, Mezzotint Films. Audette says: “The story of Nico Calabria’s climb was in the local paper. I called the family and asked if they shot any footage? The next day I’m screening the dailies and I knew I had a great story and a great little film.”  Nico’s Challenge has garnered wide acclaim in both national and international film festivals.

A second feature-length film is currently in production at Mezzotint Films. Titled Convicted, it is a poignantly disturbing family portrait of how, in an effort to protect children, the medical and legal establishment unleashed a tsunami of investigations, and in their wake, families on both sides try to pick up the pieces. Convicted holds a glimpse of our own vulnerabilities, and shows the horror and ease with which our own lives can get caught-up in the chaos of childlike terror.

Topic:

Creative Master Series

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Backstage Conversations

Sandra Adair, A.C.E. is an award winning feature film editor who resides in Austin, Texas. Adair has enjoyed an ongoing artistic collaboration with film director Richard Linklater, having edited 18 films for him over the past 22 years, some of which include the cult classic “Dazed and Confused”, the 2012 comedy “Bernie” and the critically acclaimed “Before” trilogy, “Before Sunrise”, “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight”. In 2014, Linklater’s “Boyhood” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews and has since won numerous awards, including 3 Golden Globes including that for Best Picture, Drama. Boyhood also earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Editing for Sandra Adair. Adair is currently editing Linklater’s “That’s What I’m Talking About.” 

Adair was nominated for an Eddie Award for Best Editing of a Musical or Comedy by the American Cinema Editors in 2003 for “School of Rock”, and won the Best Edited Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2012 for the feature doc Shepard and Dark, for director Treva Wurmfeld. Some of Adair’s other credits with other directors include “Everything Must Go”, starring Will Ferrell, and the award winning documentary “Sushi: The Global Catch”. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and American Cinema Editors and enjoys supporting and mentoring new filmmakers in the Austin area.

Topic:

Creative Master Series

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Backstage Conversations

Tom Stern, ASC, AFC earned Oscar, BAFTA Award and Camera Image Gold Frog nominations for Best Cinematography for his work on Clint Eastwood’s drama “Changeling.” Stern, who has enjoyed a long association with Eastwood, more recently lensed Eastwood’s critically acclaimed, box office hit “American Sniper.” He also served as the cinematographer on Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys,” “J. Edgar,” “Hereafter,” “Invictus,” “Gran Torino,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” Blood Work,” and the Oscar-winning dramas “Million Dollar Baby” and “Mystic River.” 

Stern was the cinematographer on “Broken Horses,” directed Vidhu Vinod Chopra, in U.S. theaters, April 10, 2015. His collaborations with other directors include “Sleepless Night” (Frédéric Jardin), the worldwide blockbuster “The Hunger Games” (Gary Ross), “Trouble with the Curve” (Rob Lorenz) and “Things We Lost in the Fire” (Susanne Bier). 

A 40-year industry veteran, Stern has collaborated with Eastwood for more than three decades, first as a gaffer and then as the chief lighting technician for the director’s Malpaso Productions. In that capacity, he worked on a wide range of films, including “The Rookie” and “Unforgiven,” with Eastwood, “Class Action,” with Michael Apted and “Road to Perdition” and the Oscar®-winning “American Beauty.” with Sam Mendes.

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Backstage Conversations

About the Contributor:

Bill Baggelaar is the Senior Vice-President of Technology for Production and Post-Production at Sony Pictures, where he is helping the studio to forge the future in digital film and TV production and post by utilizing next generation workflows, tools and techniques, as well as mastering, content processing and downstream distribution and archiving technologies.

He joined the company in 2011, focusing his efforts on streamlining 4k and 2k workflows from on-set capture to post-production for DI and mastering. He has been instrumental in driving the transition from tape-based video to the file-based world of IMF (Interoperable Master Format) for UltraHD and HD. Bill has led the team at Sony Pictures to help Sony Electronics develop the world’s first 4k video service, Sony’s 4K Video Unlimited. Sony Pictures now has over 250 titles (and counting) finished as UHD IMFs.

Previously he worked at Warner Bros. Studios for 13 years in feature animation, vfx, DI and video mastering. He holds a BS in Computer Science, is a SMPTE member and represents the studio in various industry technical organizations.

Topic:

ACES 1.0

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Backstage Conversations

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Dustin Cross designed high security computer systems and managed data centers before transitioning in 2006 to working full-time in movies and television. He became a digital imaging technician (DIT) in ICG Local 600 in 2010. Since then, Dustin has worked as a DIT for directors of photography Theo van de Sande on “Deliverance Creek,” Dick Pope on “Bernie,” Tim Suhrstedt on “50 to 1” and “As Cool As I Am” and Barry Ackroyd on “Dark Places” and “Parkland.”

Topic:

ACES 1.0

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Backstage Conversations

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Daryn Okada, ASC recently served as director of photography on the features “Let’s Be Cops,” “Dolphin Tale 2” and the High Dynamic Range short film “Emma”. His film credits also include “Mean Girls,” “Just Like Heaven,” “Baby Mama,” “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” “American Reunion,” “Cradle 2 the Grave,” “Dr. Doolittle 2” “Lake Placid,” “Anna Karenina,” “My Father the Hero,” “Captain Ron” and “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.”

Earlier in his career, he earned an American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award nomination for his work on the CBS mini series “In a Child’s Name.” Okada also lensed the pi-lots for the popular series “Dawson’s Creek,” “Switched at Birth” and “Wasteland.” Between fea-ture films, Daryn has photographed 22 episodes of the ABC series “Castle.”

A Los Angeles native, Okada is self-taught in the art of cinematography. He has served for 9 years on the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and three terms as President of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).

Topic:

ACES 1.0

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Backstage Conversations