The Hollywood Post Alliance® (www.hpaonline.com) will host its 17th annual HPA Tech Retreat, February 14-18, at Rancho Las Palmas in Rancho Mirage, California. Recognized as one of the industry’s most significant technology conferences, the 4-Day HPA Tech Retreat has become a must attend event for technology leaders from the Hollywood studios, post production, broadcasting, hardware and software manufacturers, as well as other top media and entertainment professionals. The conference offers a unique opportunity to learn from the industry’s leading technologists and innovative minds, to better understand the latest trends in post production, cinema, broadcast and related technologies, and to gain deep insights into the industry’s current and future issues from its leading engineers, innovators, thinkers and players.
An annual sellout, the Tech Retreat is also a superb, one-of-a-kind networking forum; a place where professionals meet and engage with colleagues in a relaxed, no-hype and mutually supportive environment, where the focus is on the technology and the sharing of information and ideas.
“The Tech Retreat provides a unique way to get into the same room with the people who are defining the present and shaping the future. The amazing cross section of the industry who attend our event represents so many of the disciplines of our industry that it’s hard not to walk away from the Tech Retreat without gaining a broad perspective of the state of the technology and the issues and challenges facing our industry today,” states HPA® president Leon Silverman. “With our industry in the midst of such dramatic change, which has been so impacted by technology, the Tech Retreat has become a requirement for those who want to stay competitive and on top of these significant industry issues and trends.”
The HPA has once again assembled an incredible roster of speakers, panelists and presenters. They include: Bob Seidel (CBS), Brad Hunt (Digital Media Directions), Wendy Aylsworth (Warner Bros), Leon Silverman (Disney), Jim DeFilippis (Fox),Matthew Goldman (Ericsson), Richard Doherty (Microsoft), Peter Putnam (ROAM Consulting), Gary Mandle (Sony), Howard Lukk (Disney), Steve Poehlein (HP), and Hans Hoffmann (European Broadcasting Union), among other notable individuals.
Highlights of the event will include an all-day HPA “Supersession” on today’s challenging file-based workflows which will feature the production, post production, visual effects and technology teams of major television and feature film projects sharing their lessons learned. The Supersession will offer tutorials and case studies on films such as “Social Network”, “Tron: Legacy”; and “Community”, an NBC comedy, to name a few. In addition, there will be a half-day seminar on reference monitoring presented by SMPTE Gold Medal winner Charles Poynton; a pre-Tech Retreat session entitled, “Next Generation Television Broadcasting” from the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC); and the annual and widely anticipated, Washington Year in Review, as well as the Broadcast panel discussing “Broadcasting: If It’s Dead, How Come So Many People Continue to Watch It.”
Other presentations and panel discussions will cover such topics as 3D, single-lens 3D, HD SLRs, OLED, LTO-5, phonetic processing, “loose coupling,” content protection, “the cloud,” global content repositories, to name a few. A special post-retreat session will provide an eye-opening review of the history of broadcasting and moving-image media from Mark Schubin.
“The HPA Tech Retreat is the only event where you can find everything from cable-bend radius to a review of legislation on the same program,” says Mark Schubin, chairman of the Retreat. “Nobody knows everything about the industry, and the retreat is a great place to find out what’s going on outside your niche.”
“You can read the trade press to get some reporter’s view of what’s going on. At the HPA Tech Retreat, we have the top executives themselves — from TV networks, Hollywood studios, SMPTE, NAB, EBU, etc. You can find out what’s going on directly from the horse’s mouth,” Schubin adds.
As in the past, each day will begin with a Breakfast Roundtable where anything goes. This year the roundtables will tackle subjects ranging from 3D workflows to digital collaboration.
The Demo Room will feature the latest technological innovations from more than 50 leading manufacturers and as in years past, there will be the premier of never before seen technologies and hardware.
Registration and a complete program are available on the HPA’s website at www.hpaonline.com. For additional assistance, please contact the Hollywood Post Alliance office at 213-614-0860.
The Tech Retreat is sponsored by the Hollywood Post Alliance®, serving the professional community of businesses and individuals who provide expertise, support, tools and the infrastructure for the creation and finishing of motion pictures, television, commercials, digital media and other dynamic media content.
