The upcoming National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, which will take place April 14-19 in Las Vegas, is slated to host plenty of conference material to update and educate attendees about HD production and postproduction.
Among the events to consider is the Production/Post World Conference, which will host training and education sessions from April 13-18. An “HD Summit” session will be held each day from April 14-18.
Training sessions will be offered on technologies including Avid’s Xpress Pro, Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Shake, Adobe’s After Effects and Premiere Pro, Sony’s Vegas and more.
There will also be a session on HD cameras that will include an explanation of the HDV format for those weighing their options.
Editors Steven Rosenblum, A.C.E. (Blood Diamond) and James Thomas (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) will deliver keynotes. NAB presents the Production/Post World Conference with training business firm Future Media Concepts.
Meanwhile, conference partners NAB, the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC@USC) and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) are planning the annual Digital Cinema Summit for April 14-15.
“As digital technologies bring the various sectors of the entertainment industry closer together, the Digital Cinema Summit grows more germane to our NAB audience,” said NAB VP of science and technology John Marino. ETC@USC and SMPTE will draw back the curtain on key innovations that impact our postproduction, research and manufacturing, and Internet broadcast communities.
The two-day event will feature keynotes, case studies and panels examining real world successes and challenges across the entire digital production and postproduction pipeline.
Saturday’s lineup, programmed by SMPTE, focuses on topics including technologies for creating digital intermediates (DIs) and new workflows. Chris Cookson, CTO for Warner Bros. Entertainment, is scheduled to deliver Saturday’s keynote address that will explore what the industry can do to prepare for and empower the long-term promise of digital cinema image quality.
Sunday’s program, produced by ETC@USC, will look at creating and distributing digital motion picture content for consumption in the movie theater and the new digital home. Sessions will address the digital pipeline, and include a pair of case studies analyzing production of two recent features.
Information about conference sessions and exhibitions at the upcoming NAB can be found at www.nab.org.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More