DV Expo 2001       
DV Expo 2001        some of the photos can be clicked for more info

The DV Expo 2001 had many experiences to offer anyone who is seeking more inforation about Digital Video. And your budget doesn't matter. You can go on the show floor and see hundreds of interesting products for zero dollars. You just apply ahead of time for your floor pass. And if you have some dollars to spend, you can see experimental film festivals, listen to experts talk about their favorite topics, see presentations and go to parties.

We met people like Troy Cory (Billy Graham afficianado) who was always cracking jokes, and glad to be at the show.

Some of the attendees wanted to see everything and could not come up with the cash so they volunteered their time in exchange for a pass to the seminars. And there were some pretty good seminars and forums.

Film and TV star Dick Van Dyke was seen on the exibitor floor several times. It turns out he is very interested in special effects. He even has his own blue-screen studio. Must have started when he acted in Mary Poppins and did his penguin dance.

Dick Van Dyke                       Kobe Dumas, volunteer            grabbing lunch at the LA Convention Center

One seminar I enjoyed was The Art of Rotoscoping. Presented by Matt Silverman, he immediately got my attention when he explained that he was interested in coming up with ideas that would make money for him while he slept. One of these ideas was to publish a book. Matt has a solid grasp of the technology and he has been through the wars. His stories about projects he has worked on and under gave me a good idea of what it is like to deal with clients who are artistes. Matt gave two different classes on rotoscoping (part 1 and 2).

In another session Joanne and I watched Dick Reizner show us his bag o' tricks that he has accumulated over 39 years of camera work. He asked a trick question, " How do you make clean holes in foam ? " , that I was dumb enough to stick my hand up for. " Use a soldering iron " , I said. Wrong answer..... Dick recommended freezing the foam in an icebox and then drilling the holes you wanted. Sort of like cryogenic cooling. Many of Dicks tricks can be found at Videography Magazine. Tips cover camera work, lighting, how to travel with equipment, working with talent and more.

There was a great session covering wireless networking advances and how this technology can be applied to the videographers toolset.

Allen Daviau said to never say "shoot" a subject....use "photograph", it is ever so much less intimidating. Allen is a renowned director of photography (DP) and he gave a fabulous presentation about the opportunities today for both digital video and traditional film (and he loves both formats). Click here to get more in-depth coverage of his presentation and his resume.

Philip W. Shiller of Apple Computer kicked off one of the keynote presentations that just happened to include the announcement of the Final Cut Pro editing suite that runs on the MacIntosh. Wow ! After seeing what the new version of FCP 3.0 does, Joanne and I are saving our pennies to upgrade. Click here for more on the presentation.

Joanne and I get a big kick out of all forms of cinema, so we looked forward to the two nights of Film Festival festivities. As we might have expected, some of the stuff was brilliant and some of it sucked.

Paul Lundahl

There was much more than we could take in and we are looking forward to next year at DV EXPO.

Joanne Yamaguchi and Gus S. Calabrese

If you are interested in obtaining any of the video clips at this site (on CD) contact us at info@omegadogs.com.