Jesse Parker and me at the Sound Devices booth
If it is spring, it must be time to go to Las Vegas for the NAB Extravaganza. Nothing psyches me up like what I see in the miles of convention space filled with the highest tech, most innovative gear that could not have been dreamed up nor imagined when I started my career as a 16mm film camera news shooter. I could never have predicted a switcher that offered wipes ad infinitem, virtual sets, macros for automated complications, oh yeah, AND that can stream our show live on the web. And the cameras! These little cameras produce the clearest, most colorful pictures that can fill the screen at a movie theater.
But it is more than the technology that inspires me at NAB. It’s the people I have known since day one that I continually connect with at the booths or share a beer with at a chic party. We talk about the rental business, trends in camera sales, how to manage sophisticated integration projects; how’s the business in the Northeast compared to Florida. I feel like I am in my element, like I am on top of the world. My world, a creative place on the cutting edge of technology. And I think, wow, it would have taken me longer to change the film in my camera than it took to post this message.
What’s your NAB story?