Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Company (PBTSC) and Hollywood-headquartered The Post Group—which also maintains The Post Group Westside in West Los Angeles—have entered into a long-term agreement to develop new digital postproduction processes for television and film. PBTSC will also utilize The Post Group as a beta site for its emerging digital technologies in acquisition, recording, projection, display and storage. The Post Group and The Post Group Westside are full-service postproduction facilities serving the film, television and commercial communities.
Per the agreement, The Post Group will purchase Panasonic HDTV equipment, including AJ-HD2700 1080i/720P switchable D-5 HD VTRs, AJ-UFC1800 Universal Format Converters, the AV-HS3100 1080i production switcher with digital effects generator, and the PT-D9500U large-venue DLP XGA projector. The Post Group is purchasing the AJ-HD2700s to make Panasonic D-5 HD its main recording format.
Fred Rheinstein, chairman of The Post Group, said that his company "will act as an information exchange, enabling Panasonic to receive direct consumer feedback. Panasonic’s high definition technology is impressive. Now we are looking forward to working with Panasonic’s engineers in developing a myriad of new applications."
PBTSC president Warren Allgyer related that "Panasonic is eager to work with The Post Group to bring new digital techniques to the forefront. Digital video technology is a great enabler, and we’ve experienced a vast leap in its use in the intensely competitive, ever-evolving film and television industries. Emerging applications like digital cinema and electronic dailies are creating new business opportunities. These applications will require better and faster postproduction techniques that will enhance creativity and productivity. By formalizing a deeper relationship with a cutting-edge post facility like The Post Group, Panasonic will gain invaluable insight in developing our digital video technologies and products."
PBTSC is a division company of Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, the principal North America subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (MC, NYSE), one of the world’s leading producers of electronic and electric products for consumer, business and industrial use.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More