The Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) get-together held earlier this month in Culver City, Calif. (SHOOT, 11/22, p. 1) was important not only for the insights presented during the featured panel discussion, but also the informal dialogue among industry professionals immediately before and after the roundtable session.
This exchange of ideas and sharing of information, said HPA president Leon Silverman, executive VP of Laser-Pacific Media Corp, Hollywood, has become essential for an industry that is at a historic point in transition economically, creatively and technologically.
Indeed, different sectors of the industry need to get together for the greater good of the business. For example, HPA panelist Larry Chernoff, president of the newly christened Ascent Media Creative Services—which was formerly Liberty Livewire Pictures (see story, p. 7)—noted that a group or an ongoing forum is needed to bring equipment manufacturers and the post community together to cooperatively address standards issues and marketplace needs. Until then, he conjectured, "utter chaos" in terms of divergent standards could rein.
When the HPA was formed last year, Silverman touched upon the point made by Chernoff. Acknowledging that there are times when "issues and viewpoints are not common" between, for example, manufacturers and facilities, Silverman envisioned the HPA hopefully providing a forum for those differences to be discussed and meaningfully addressed.
As earlier reported, the HPA rose from the ashes of the Association of Imaging Technology and Sound (ITS), the 15-year-old trade association which met its demise last year (SHOOT, 8/24/01, p. 1). Members of the ITS’ Southern California chapter, however, banded together and continued what had been an annual ITS staple, the Technology Retreat, this past February. And that core of supporters then decided to form the HPA, building upon what had been a successful ITS Southern California group and applying lessons learned from the national ITS, which failed to generate the necessary support for survival (SHOOT, 3/22, p. 1).
The turnout for the recent HPA panel discussion represented a microcosm of what the organization behind the event hopes to become: A mix of actively involved participants from varied sectors of the postproduction community—facilities, manufacturers, software firms, new-media companies, individual artisans and business people.
In his opening remarks during this month’s HPA session, Silverman related that there are some 15,000-plus professionals in the community who have made postproduction their livelihood. He said that a prime mission of the HPA is to help "aggregate those 15,000 voices so that the power of the industry becomes apparent." This, he observed, is important in varied respects, including presenting a united front to local and state officials, as well as national government in order to deal with key issues such as runaway production, which has had a profoundly negative ripple effect on the U.S. post market. Again, dialogue is key, with the industry reaching out to the outside powers that be.
Meanwhile, more dialogue-generating plans are unfolding as the HPA’s Technology Retreat is slated for Feb. 6-8 in Palm Springs, Calif. The 2002 retreat drew nearly 160 attendees and generated productive, relevant exchanges about different creative, technical and business aspects of the industry. The annual event offers an informal, in-depth exchange of information, bringing together technology visionaries and experts, users, manufacturers and broadcasters to share technical knowledge in a non-sales environment. The Retreat is geared to provide participants with insights into new tools, techniques and technology.
