For the past decade, IBC has pursued the steady strategy of increasing the value of what it offers to the production community without risking the betrayal of its origins as Europe’s top new technology showcase and home to the best technical papers and tutorials.
This year, the IBC conference committee presents a new mix of events that connect more obviously with its six themes—Delivering The Goods, Digital Lifestyles, Production and Postproduction, Archive and Restoration, D-Cinema, and Digital Radio—and such returns on investments as the free five-day city travel pass for all attendees.
While a trip to Amsterdam can be expensive, eight of the 12 production events planned will be free sessions and many elements of the theme days will offer insights into new production and distribution trends, such as the digital intermediate process and broadband wireless delivery, that no producer, surviving in the prevailing harsh economy, can afford to miss.
These come under three headings: Master classes that happen in the afternoons and carry a ticket price, and Harnessing Technology and What Caught My Eye—two sessions that run up to lunchtime and cost nothing. Room L will be the constant venue, and the program of events will run from Friday, September 12 through Monday, September 15.
John Morrell, executive producer of the What Caught My Eye and Harnessing Technology sessions, said, “We want to attract production staff and producers who want to hear from experts about the new technology and trends that will enhance program-making and keep budgets manageable.”
On Friday, the Harnessing Technology special, “Iraq: Getting The Pictures Back,” which will be led by Sky correspondent Colin Brazier, will be presented.
Brazier was ‘embedded’ with the U.S. infantry troops that marched on Baghdad and, like many of the reporters who accepted this form of access to the front line, fed viewers around the world some astonishing pictures at great speed, while risking his life. Assisted by technician Phil Parnell, Brazier will tell his own journalistic story, from Afghanistan as well as Iraq, and demonstrate the new-generation PC and satellite phone that got his stories back so efficiently. Several reporters and cameramen perished in Iraq, but Brazier lives to tell a riveting and uncensored tale.
Monday is the last conference day, but the quality of the events will be sustained by a What Caught My Eye look at cameras, lenses, and mics with the BBC’s Jon Attard in the chair and the master class “It Looks Like It Was Shot Last Week,” about movie and TV series restoration.
Attard, head of technology, production modernization for the BBC, will be considering the respective merits of Sony’s new Optical Disc system, Panasonic’s RAM alternative technology, the rush of new wireless cameras, DV and HD format improvements, and the new ranges of lenses and mics present at IBC. This is not a gear-fest, but a look at how programs might be made in the future, and what kind of content creation both the new tapeless formats and the surviving tape formats are best suited to.
Restoration is fast becoming a boom business. Warner Bros. stunned the Cannes Film festival with The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938) and received plaudits for its earlier work on Singing In The Rain (1952). Metro Broadcast was responsible for the astounding restoration work that helped Jimmy Page’s recently released Led Zeppelin DVD project go quadruple platinum, and CBS Digital recently finished restoring 180 episodes of I Love Lucy for re-mastering for DVD release by Paramount Home Entertainment.
Watch the IBC website for the final speaker line-up.
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