Marc Benioff interviews Eric Schmidt

72 hours onsite in 5 days; split shift crews over the week; massive set change 2 days before show; 8 cameras, 2 jibs; Metallica. Must be Dreamforce! The Salesforce.com show at Moscone Convention Center has a reputation for  last minute changes and the costs be damned! Lolipop thrust off the stage required more than the usual number of cameras: 3 long-lens at 3,6 & 9 o’clock; a jib near the stage and one in the back of the house; wireless handheld camera and a couple of robo-cams. Rarely have so many worked so hard; Jack Morton Worldwide and VideoApplications kept the ship sailing.

1st trip out of the country in 2011 was Directing for Creative Technology at the SIBOS conference in Toronto. Most challenging part of the job was clearing customs and hoping the reams of paperwork that allow foreigners to work in Canada were in order.

Video Village at SIBOS Conference Room

Our video setup included 5 robo-cams surrounding a boxing-ring style stage with raked seating for 200. Lots of discussions by business, financial and technology leaders – I found the mobile banking segments most interesting.

Off to the desert of Arizona for Google’s Zeitgeist. One of those TED-like conferences where Google and their Partners come together to hear leading thinkers of our time. One comes away from these talks feeling better knowing there are people out there striving to make the word a better place.

Maria Bartiromo interviews Sir Richard Branson at Zeitgeist

Produced by Group X, speakers & performers over the two days included: Eric Schmidt, Robert Reich, Sandra Day O’Connor,  Dean Ornish, Gilberto Gill & Son, Sal Masekela, Jane McGonigal, Tony Hawk, Sir Richard Branson, Cindy McCain, Ted Koppel & Arianna Huffington (click here to watch video), Celine & Fabien Cousteau, Chelsea Clinton, Tim O’Reilly, Ray Kurzweil, Deepak Chopra and Mark Cuban. Pretty impressive line-up!

Oracle Open World and Pay Pal X conferences leveraged the 1st half of October.

The 2nd half was my 2nd trip out of the country: Citrix Synergy & Summit shows in Barcelona. Half of my excellent video crew was from France, the other local. As the camera ops spoke very little English and I, no Catalan, I directed the show in Español.

Barcelona Video Crew on Citirx

The north coast part of town, where the convention center is located, was totally redeveloped for the 1992 Olympics. One evening I went to the other side of town – with a couple of my French crew (and 90,000 fans) – to see a futbol match between the Host city and Seville at Camp Nou stadium. A great treat to see the top FC in the world. At the end of the show, my wife joined me for a mini vacation. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in this great city!

November went from coast to coast. An executive conference in Pebble Beach for Harris Creative and a Cisco event, produced by InVision in Miami Beach.

Much of the rest of the year was spent on the 27″ iMac, editing Optimal Life a series hosted by Dr. Christine Lee. Last year saw the release of The Essentials of Diabetes and The Essentials of Breast cancer. In 2012 we’ll finish a Spanish version of Diabetes plus the next Series: The Essentials of Asthma. Anyone you know who is dealing with these conditions should watch these videos.

2011 was a strong year, I feel very fortunate to be connected to so many talented production companies, producers and video staging companies. 2012 looks to continue on that path. Let it roll!!!

Jim in Touring Video Truck

Hard to believe I have been running my own business for a decade now. 2000 was the year I ventured into the freelance world and it has been a most rewarding experience!  My goal was to broaden my work expreiences and grow my netwwork of colleagues and clients.  Over the last 10 years, I’ve worked on productions in the far corners of the world and my database has grown exponentially – I consider myself a fortunate person!

Speaking of fortunate, it has been quite a busy start to the year:  In  January, I did my first show at the CES in Las Vegas (I was available as the shows at the Detroit Auto Show where I have worked most of the last decade have cancelled).  Directing for Carlstrom productions, we did a reprise of a show for NVIDIA in San Jose last year. Video control was in an HD truck provided by Touring Video. Show was streamed in 720HP:    (Click on photo to view webcast) .

The following weeks included productions for HP in Santa Clara and Boeing in Seattle. The Boeing show also included 3D clips of the 1st flight of the new 787 Dreamliner – can’t wait to fly on that plane!

In March I was in Orlando with Creative Technology and TBA Productions directing the Walmart Annual Sales Meeting. Later in March, I directed a designer eye-wear fashion show for Sparks in New York. (Sames as last year, see Eyes on New York.)

April was busy with a Hyundai Dealer meeting in Montgomery, Alabama; Facebook Developer meeting in San Francisco and for the 5th year, the Milken Global Institute in Beverly Hills.

Working for GoVision out of Texas, I set up an Elvis system at a San Jose State football game. EVS (hence Elvis) is the manufacturer of the instant replay system used on most sports broadcasts. 3 cameras were interfaced with the Elvis which then fed an HD switcher in the GoVision truck. Graphics and video rolls were the other sources that were fed to the mobile LED video board GoVision brought in. From the audience perspective, the 18 x 32 video screen looked like it was part of the stadium.

3 ½ hours, 54 acts and no commercial breaks. That was the 60th anniversary special for CCTV (Chinese Network Television) at the Cow Palace. Technical directing in the Magnetic Image truck for producer Van Jarvis, we had a wild time – Chinese producers yelling instructions to a Chinese director who called the 6 cameras in English. Wish I had some video to show you!

The GPU is here – in 3D!  Directing for Carlstrom Productions at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference, I saw some amazing new CGI demos and live 3D presentations by NVIDIA President & Co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang (Right). Click photo to watch the video (on the NVIDIA website, the links to the videos are a little ways down the page). It’s some of the best quality Flash streaming I’ve seen yet!  You won’t get the 3D effect but when you start with HD, the quality of the end video can be pretty impressive.  Schizophrenic directing! In a first for me (as well as I can remember), I directed two shows at once. During breakouts, the main room was dived by an air-wall. I had camera 1 in one room, camera 2 in a second room. Using two busses of the switcher, I mixed each camera and the speaker support graphics of two different presenters at the same time.

Talking With Chuck. Directing for TenCue Productions on a Talk with Chuck event, there was a live audience in the new conference center at the downtown offices of Charles Schwab as well as several thousand watching the webcast. The conference center is outfitted with four, Hi-Def robo-cams, touch-screen lighting control, wireless audio, projection and a 103” plasma monitor. The control room video switcher was a Panasonic AV-HS Hi-Def series. We added two Panasonic AJ-HDX-900 DVCPRO HD cameras from Magnetic Image Video; recording on tape as well as Firestore hard drives. Carl Quintanilla, Co-Anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” moderated the event that covered changes in the economy and the market’s likely response. View Webcast: http://tinyurl.com/yccjydh

The day the show ended I hopped a flight back to SFO and drove down to Palo Alto to direct for InVision Communications on a VMware event. VMware (the name combines virtual machine and software) is one of the tech companies that offer software and hardware in the cloud. VMware hosts other operating systems in such a way that each operating system behaves as if it were installed on a self-contained computer with its own set of programs and hardware resources. Now you’re more confused that ever!

The presentation took place in the basketball gym on the new VMware campus. This show’s video elements were even more complex: One switcher to do the screens (two in the gym and an LED screen outside); I ran the video switcher for the record cut and a third switcher was used for the webcast. . Good exercise for the brain: directing the cameras to the screens, all elements to the records and dual picture in picture (pip) to the webcast. John Chambers and Michael Dell made short presentations. (Screen shot of the webcast)

In between celebrating my wife & daughter’s birthdays I directed the video for the Bay Area Council’s Outlook 2009 program in San Francisco. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was interviewed on Heavy Lifting: What’s Next for the People’s Governor?

A couple of days later and it was back to LA for the Milken Global Conference. (check out the link for videos). I’ve done this show four years running and hands down, it has the most star studded list of presenters of any one show I’m involved in – well it is in Beverly Hills. There are over 100 presentations in three days. Panelists on shows I directed included: Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (that’s the Governator twice in one week!), John Huntsman (Utah) and Edward Rendell (Pennsylvania). A panel on Sports Philanthropy included Andre Agassi, Mia Hamm, Chris Waddell (paralympic athlete who will attempt to become the first paraplegic to summit Kilimanjaro unassisted later this year), skateboarded Tony Hawk, and golf legend Annika Sorenstam. The second days political panel was a left vs. right discussion with former SF Mayor and Speaker of the House Willie Brown & Rush Limbaugh. Fights were breaking out in the audience – not on the stage! (Screen shot of the webcast)

Heading East in May: Las Vegas, then my first ever gig in….. Arkansas.

The event was a fashion show for Safilo, manufacturers of designer eyewear. Safilo is licensed to produce eyewear for some of the world’s leading labels, including (take a breath): Alexander McQueen, A/X Armani Exchange, Balenciaga, Banana Republic, Boss by Hugo Boss, Bottega Veneta, Diesel, 55DSL, Dior, Emporio Armani, Fossil, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Hugo by Hugo Boss, Jimmy Choo, Jennifer Lopez, Juicy Couture, Kate Spade, Liz Claiborne, Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Max Mara, Max&Co., Nine West, Pierre Cardin, Saks Fifth Avenue, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent. Most of these lines were represented at the show.

Two cameras were operated on 8′ Platforms behind the walls in one corner of the exhibit booth (along with two, locked down “spycam’s”. The photo quality from my phone isn’t great but it gives you an idea of how we shot incognito. You can see the runway (surrounded by an espresso bar) and the screens in the background.

Over three days, I directed nine, 20 minute shows with models walking a short runway, six feet above the floor of the exhibit booth. Four widescreen videos projected IMAG and supporting media. Video production was coordinated by Creative Technology and graphics and animation were created by Sky Creative.

Up next this month, The Milken Educator Awards, VMware and the Milken Global Conference – Stay tuned!

First jobs of the year were for AT&T and Seagate. The AT&T show was in Dallas at the Hyatt Regency not far from the infamous Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated. I’ve stayed at this hotel a number of times and last year took a trip to the Sixth Floor Museum. For those of us who were alive in 1963 and have memories of that day in November, a trip to the museum is guaranteed to bring it all back. Most amazing display are some of the actual film & movie cameras that documented the shooting.

After the show, I flew back to SFO, got in my car and drove down to Santa Cruz for a Seagate employee meeting. Seagate is emblematic of what is going on in these tough economic times. They replaced their CEO and will have layoffs to combat the slow sales of their hard drives. (I did my part to help by buying a 500gb Seagate drive for my edit system). These meetings, produced by The Kenwood Group,  happen 3-4 times a year – it’s great to have a reoccurring show these days! This show is especially enjoyable as Kenwood employees the latest technology to get the information to the Seagate employees around the world. We have a satellite truck to distribute the show and for the first time, recorded in 720p for distribution via the web. Creative Technology provided the HD rig and I directed (and switched) the video record, screen switch and satellite feed. Video juggling!!!

I and many of my colleagues in the industry are interested in seeing how business will develop throughout the year. Normally the corporate production industry is very strong and I have not seen this level of concern since 9/11. This week, I would usually be on my way to the Detroit Auto show but Nissan/Infiniti (who I’ve worked with the last several years) and several other companies in the Auto Industry have cancelled their appearance at the show. As we have learned other major companies have cancelled or planned to cancel future events (most notably Cisco and Apple).

Diversity is important in times like these and we have to call upon our expertise to keep the workflow going. I usually have some editing or producing projects going on to fill the gaps when I’m not directing. If that’s not the case, I’ll work on pro bono projects that I’ve been putting off.

The middle of January I will be off to Dallasto direct the video for AT&T’s annual meeting, fly back and do a Seagate show for the Kenwood Group in Santa Cruz.

Jim

Jim checks the set (photo courtesy of Dan Crowe)

The next day I directed the The Tech Awards program in San Jose for Davinci Fusion. The Tech Awards recognize the best of those who are utilizing innovative technology solutions to address the most urgent critical issues facing our planet. One award winner had saved an estimated 3 million lives by developing a non-reusable hypodermic needle system! Check out The Tech Awards website: http://www.techawards.org/about/

Salesforce.com Webcast

Google has two conference rooms, one in their cafeteria (great food by the way) and a smaller one – where we did the Chrome launch. Both rooms have 4 robotic cameras: JVC Hi-Def with two Kahunas in one and Sony cams & Panasonic switchers in the other. One switcher controls the webcast and the other is a screen switcher.

Always a challenge directing robocams – especially in the system with one camera controller. For the larger productions, I usually add a handheld to the system that has two camera controllers.

In a couple of weeks I will be directing the media (video cameras, tape & graphics) for the Google Zeitgeist event. More on that to come…