Digital Production Buzz
March 31, 2016
[Transcripts provided by Take 1 Transcription]
(Click here to listen to this show.)
HOSTS
Larry Jordan
Mike Horton
SEGMENTS
BuZZ Flashback: Vivian Rosenthal
GUESTS
Steve Martin, President, Ripple Training
Michael Kammes, Director, Technology
Ned Soltz, Contributing Editor, Creative Planet, Ned Soltz Inc.
Philip Hodgetts, President, Lumberjack System
Randi Altman, Editor-in-Chief, PostPerspective.com
Cirina Catania, Supervising Producer, Digital Production Buzz
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Larry Jordan: Tonight’s show is about time, with a look back to the beginning of The Buzz, then a look forward to NAB and beyond. We start with Steve Martin, the CEO of Ripple Training. Steve co-founded The Buzz with Ron Margolis in September 2000. When Steve and Ron began The Buzz, there was only one other podcast on the web.
Larry Jordan: Joining Steve is Philip Hodgetts, the CEO of Intelligent Assistance, who took over The Buzz from Steve. Tonight, both Philip and Steve share their memories of the early days of podcasting.
Larry Jordan: Next, we look forward to NAB 2016. NAB is less than three weeks away, so tonight we’ve assembled an all star team to predict what the hot news is going to be – Philip Hodgetts, the CEO of Intelligent Assistance, Michael Kammes, the Director of Technology at Keycode Media, Randi Altman, the Editor in Chief of postperspective.com and Ned Soltz, the Contributing Editor for Creative Planet Networks.
Larry Jordan: Next, tonight marks a transition for The Buzz to new owners and a new format. Before we make the transition, though, we want to spend time talking with Cirina Catania, the Supervising Producer for The Buzz, and take a look back at the last nine years of the program.
Larry Jordan: All this plus a Buzz Flashback and Randi Altman’s Perspective on the News. The Buzz starts now.
Announcer #1: Digital Production Buzz is brought to you by Other World Computing at macsales.com; and by imagineproducts.com, the workflow experts.
Announcer #2: Since the dawn of digital filmmaking – authoritative – one show serves a worldwide network of media professionals – current – uniting industry experts: production, filmmakers, post production and content creators around the planet – distribution. From the media capital of the world in Los Angeles, California, The Digital Production Buzz goes live now.
Larry Jordan: And welcome to the Digital Production Buzz, the world’s longest running podcast for the creative content industry covering media production, post production and marketing around the world. Mike, tonight’s show is all… Mike, stop typing. You’re on… Mike.
Mike Horton: I’m interacting with the community.
Larry Jordan: You’re what?
Mike Horton: I am, I’m interacting with the community.
Larry Jordan: I didn’t even know you could spell interacting.
Mike Horton: Well, it didn’t come out right. It’s just interacting with the community.
Larry Jordan: Did you know that NAB is less than three weeks away?
Mike Horton: Yes I do. Yes I do. If my face looks a little stressed, if my hair’s a little whiter, it’s because it is less than three weeks to go.
Larry Jordan: So what’s happening with Supermeet?
Mike Horton: Ok, actually today we have some announcements. We haven’t actually made them, so I’m going to make them right here. We’re going to be doing a lot of talk about VR and 360 video. I know we’ve covered it a little bit on The Buzz before, but we’re going to cover it a lot at the Supermeet. We’ve just booked Ted Schilowitz as our ringmaster for the VR and 360 video portion of it. We have the Nokia OZO camera, which if you look that up, it’s a really groovy camera; and we’re going to have audio and we’re going to have editing, so we’re going to take all those elements together and see if we can do some compelling…
Larry Jordan: It’s not just Supermeet. It’s VR world.
Mike Horton: …stories in VR.
Larry Jordan: It’s going to be great.
Mike Horton: That’s what we’re going to try to do.
Larry Jordan: It’s going to be fun.
Mike Horton: It is going to be fun.
Larry Jordan: I don’t think it’s possible, I think it’s just going to be…
Mike Horton: Well, I know you don’t think it’s possible, but I think we’re going to try.
Larry Jordan: And that’s Supermeet where?
Mike Horton: At the Rio Hotel on Tuesday April 19th and, honestly, if you haven’t got your tickets and you’re going to NAB and you’ve never been to a Supermeet, buy them now because by the time the 19th comes around, there probably won’t be any.
Larry Jordan: I want to remind you as well to subscribe to our free weekly show newsletter at digitalproductionbuzz.com, a look at every segment on the show and curated articles of special interest to filmmakers and, best of all, every issue is free. Mike and I will be back with Steve Martin and Philip Hodgetts right after Randi Altman’s Perspective on the News.
Larry Jordan: This is Randi Altman’s Perspective.
Larry Jordan: Randi Altman’s been writing about our industry for more than 20 years. In fact, she’s the Editor in Chief of her own website, which is postperspective.com, and it gives me great pleasure to say hello Randi, welcome back.
Randi Altman: Hey, Larry. Glad to be back.
Larry Jordan: Well, if your email’s anything like mine, I’m getting 20 to 30 messages a day about what’s coming up at NAB with vendors positioning themselves. Is there any news going on right now besides NAB?
Randi Altman: Not that I’m aware of. It’s drowning out pretty much everything else.
Larry Jordan: So what’s going on? What’s happening around the show?
Randi Altman: Well, this has sort been trending for the past few years, but before the exhibit floor even begins, there is a lot going on in Vegas surrounding NAB. It starts off with Avid Connect. They have their own little trade show and it’s interesting from a press perspective because they used to announce their news right before the show began. Now, they’re doing it on Saturday morning, so they’re getting a head start, so they sort of control that little trade show that’s going on before NAB.
Randi Altman: But then there’s also Post and Production World from the future media concept guys, which is in affiliation with NAB. That’s been going on for a few years, it’s a lot of training, lots of post talk, lots of networking, so that’s been happening. This year, and I’m sure you heard about it as well, Ang Lee is going to address the crowd at the Future of Cinema conference, so there’s a lot of buzz surrounding that. What’s been interesting is, while NAB is still out there and popular, there has been this whole world that has been built up around it and in affiliation with it, but there’s a lot to learn.
Larry Jordan: One of the things I’ve discovered is that it’s impossible on Monday morning, when all the press releases get announced, for any vendor that’s not absolutely the largest to get any kind of press attention at all, there’s just so much going on. Press announcements have started expanding to Sunday and then they’ve expanded to Saturday with Avid and they’re just trying to find a way to break through the noise to get their message out. The other reason is we’ve got 100,000 people coming in to NAB, so these other smaller conferences are using that draw to attract people to their conference, because otherwise people wouldn’t show up.
Randi Altman: Exactly.
Larry Jordan: What’s been the most interesting email that you’ve gotten recently, pitching a product that’s about to be announced?
Randi Altman: Obviously HDR has been everywhere in my inbox and people want me to come by and take a look at the solution that they’re offering, so a lot of that and a lot of VR. The North Hall at NAB used to be audio companies and very quiet. I would cut through there on my way to any events that were happening when it used to be the Hilton, but now they have this whole VR section and it’s going to get a lot more feed into the North Hall, and they’re all lumped together which is great because you can set aside an afternoon and just learn. All you want to know about VR could be done in one afternoon, thanks to the North Hall.
Larry Jordan: Randi, we’ve got a segment a little bit later in the show where we’re getting a bunch of us together to project what’s going to happen at NAB. I want to bring you back for that section and get your thoughts on what we should expect in terms of themes and hot product areas at the show. Is that ok?
Randi Altman: Sounds great.
Larry Jordan: In that case, thank you for joining us for right now, we’ll bring you back in a few minutes. Randi Altman is the Editor in Chief of postperspective.com and a regular here on The Buzz. Thanks, Randi.
Randi Altman: Thanks, Larry.
Larry Jordan: To read more from Randi Altman, visit postperspective.com.
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Larry Jordan: Steve Martin is the creative force behind Ripple Training and has been using and teaching Final Cut Pro since 1999. He’s a writer, producer and filmmaker and has consulted and/or trained for Apple, Adobe, Disney, Canon, Sony Pictures and other companies. But what makes him especially relevant for tonight is he co-founded The Buzz as DV Guys with Ron Margolis back in September of 2000. Hello, Steve, welcome.
Steve Martin: Hi, Larry. Thanks for having me on.
Larry Jordan: Oh, it’s my pleasure. By the way, I also need to say that joining us on set is Philip Hodgetts. Now, Philip masquerades as the CEO of Intelligent Assistance and Lumberjack System, but he’s also involved with technology in virtually every area of digital production and post and he also has run The Buzz for years and years and years after Steve and before me, so we’re going to take a look back in time at the very beginnings of podcasting. Philip, good to have you with us.
Philip Hodgetts: Thank you.
Larry Jordan: Steve, take us back to the early days of podcasting, way back to the year 2000. Back then, podcasting didn’t even have a name and there was only one other show on the web, which was Adam Curry’s All Things Digital. Why did you and Ron decide to start the precursor of The Buzz, called DV Guys?
Steve Martin: For one thing, we wanted to have a really cool sticker, so there’s Ron and I, we have little caricatures of ourselves and I still have stickers about this. But we wanted to do a show because Final Cut Pro had just come out and there was a lot of buzz about it and a lot of people wanted to know information about it, so we really created the show to give people information about Final Cut. Philip can speak more to that, but lots of entrenched Avid editors, people that had thousands of dollars’ worth of gear wanted to know all about Final Cut, so really that was the reason why we brought it into being.
Larry Jordan: Help me explain, because now today doing a podcast is easy, you click two buttons and suddenly you’re podcasting to billions. What was it like to create the very first podcast? What technology did you use and did it work?
Steve Martin: Since we’re going back in history, when we started the show there was no such thing as podcasting, it didn’t exist. Podcasting didn’t exist really until about 2005, when Apple decided to integrate it into iTunes. It actually existed prior to that, but Apple pretty much squashed all of the other companies that were doing development on podcasting. The bottom line is 2005 is when it officially started. When we started the DV Guys show, you had to run OS X Server and you had to run this special software called QuickTime Streaming Server. It was a service on OS X. You had to work with this software called QuickTime Broadcaster, you had to set it up, you had to broadcast your stream to the server, then the server had to spit out all of the streams and then you had to send people a link and maybe they got the feed, maybe they didn’t.
Steve Martin: It was all… we’re talking behind the… which is 1.5… audio quality wasn’t great, but it was really the first attempt at doing a radio show. You couldn’t do video as it really wasn’t practical, given the fact that we didn’t have the technological infrastructure that we have today. It was all streaming, there was no podcasting.
Larry Jordan: Steve – why? Why did you go to all this pain?
Mike Horton: I used to get the stream, I listened to it all the time.
Steve Martin: Is that Mike Horton? Hi, Mike Horton. Good to hear your voice.
Mike Horton: Yes, doesn’t anybody ever tell you who’s going to be on the show, Steve? Hi, Steve, Michael Horton here.
Steve Martin: You did say that. Hi, Mike, good to talk to you and you too, Philip, even though you’re disembodied and I don’t see you.
Mike Horton: I know, I’m just a body.
Steve Martin: So why the trouble, to answer your question – I wrote it down. Here’s why, Larry. It’s really simple – because it was cool.
Mike Horton: Exactly.
Steve Martin: It was cool, the fact we could broadcast over the internet a radio show. Are you kidding me? That was pretty neat.
Larry Jordan: So what was a typical show?
Mike Horton: Oh, I remember. I do.
Steve Martin: Yes, we had a really good theme song and I couldn’t find it anywhere, but we had a DV Guys theme song that we’d always roll in at the beginning. Philip, do you remember?
Philip Hodgetts: Yes, yes. I still have it somewhere.
Mike Horton: At one of the appearances that Ron and Steve made at early LAFCPUG meetings, because they made tons of appearances, I think on one of them they actually played the theme song and I remember it but I can’t remember it and I wish you could find it.
Steve Martin: I wish I could too, I would have rolled it in here but I just couldn’t find it.
Larry Jordan: Tell me what a typical show was. Our show now runs an hour and the show could be any length you wanted. I’m sure yours was really short, like five or six minutes.
Mike Horton: Oh yes. It would run forever.
Steve Martin: I wrote this down. One of the challenges of doing a radio show is creating good content, finding good guests, interviewing – the same thing that you have to go through every week. You know how challenging it is to find content. The same challenges back then. We interviewed, I don’t know, Boris Ziminski from BORIS, the product managers from Final Cut, the guy who wrote the software for QuickTime Streaming Server. Whatever we needed, we got them on.
Larry Jordan: But how long a show was it?
Steve Martin: The show seemed like it was about 30 minutes.
Mike Horton: No! No, no!
Philip Hodgetts: No, no! Steve, it was, like, two hours.
Mike Horton: It wasn’t. It was, like, two hours.
Philip Hodgetts: 90 minutes to two hours.
Steve Martin: Oh my God!
Philip Hodgetts: You were having so much fun, it seemed like 30 minutes.
Steve Martin: You’re right, Philip. You’re right, it was about two hours.
Philip Hodgetts: You’d do a tutorial in there, a full length tutorial.
Mike Horton: Exactly. You would have a comedian call up every once in a while.
Philip Hodgetts: Oh yes.
Mike Horton: Remember that comedian guy who would call up and do 40 minutes?
Philip Hodgetts: Yes.
Larry Jordan: And you thought people wouldn’t remember, Steve.
Steve Martin: I guess I was trying to forget. You’re right, it was a longer show, but we had a lot of challenges.
Larry Jordan: Philip, when did you take over The Buzz and was it The Buzz when you took it over?
Philip Hodgetts: It was just shortly after I moved from Australia to the United States. Steve had already moved on to DV Creatives and Ron Margolis, who was actually my host at the time, I was literally staying at his house, he said, “Would you like to come on and co-host The Digital Production Buzz?” now that there was a vacant co-host seat and so I said, “Sure, why not? As long as I don’t have to do those tutorials,” because they were hard work.
Steve Martin: Correct if me I’m wrong, Philip, but you too had a sticker made, didn’t you?
Philip Hodgetts: Oh yes. Ron went back to the same artist and had the caricature done of me. The caricature is so young.
Larry Jordan: Was it you, Steve, that started the show or Ron that started the show?
Steve Martin: Well, I worked for Ron. I put the bug in his ear, I said, “We should do a radio show.” That was at the height of 2-Pop and all this information about Final Cut. People were voracious about Final Cut information back in 1999/2000 and so I said, “We should figure out how to do a radio show,” and he goes, “Yes, we should,” and it was really that I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to set up a QuickTime OS X – back then it was called the Mac OS X Server, now it’s just called OS X – he set it up and he got it to work and we got through the technological hurdles. So it was my idea and he just said, “Ok, that’s great, let’s do it.” A lot of times Ron would just run off by the seat of his pants – I want to do it and I just do it – and that’s what happened, he just did it.
Philip Hodgetts: It wasn’t quite as simple as is it now. In order to put that QuickTime Broadcaster in place, it had to be in a co-located facility. It wasn’t just sitting in the back room, it was a dedicated box in a facility that cost quite a lot of money to put in place. Thankfully Ron had deep pockets.
Mike Horton: But it’s still hard. It’s still hard to broadcast live and stream. It’s still really hard. It shouldn’t be as hard and it’s a lot easier but it’s still hard.
Philip Hodgetts: At least it helped prove that intelligent media could handle streaming, so Ron was happy with that.
Steve Martin: Do you want to hear a secret? Here’s a secret. You remember Promacs? They’re still around, but the former guy that ran… I would say that a big part of doing this was I totally wasn’t doing it, so we’re going to do it.
Philip Hodgetts: So true, so very true.
Larry Jordan: So, Mike, when did you join the show?
Mike Horton: Me?
Larry Jordan: Yes.
Mike Horton: Philip and I were talking about that. I don’t exactly remember the date and I don’t exactly remember why Philip asked me to do it. He said because nobody else would do it, and Steve Martin wouldn’t do it so there was me.
Philip Hodgetts: Well, Steve had moved out of the city by that time too.
Mike Horton: Well, yes, Steve was in Orange County, he hadn’t moved to Arizona yet.
Philip Hodgetts: No, but it was not convenient to where we were.
Mike Horton: Yes, we were in Burbank.
Philip Hodgetts: And Ron had already moved to Hawaii by that time and was starting his fairly successful career as a real estate agent, so we were doing The Buzz with laggy software, it was really challenging at that point in time, and at NAB 2005 we did a series of live shows from the show floor on the AJA booth, if I remember, and we just decided that was a natural time to wrap up that show. We took one week off and then Greg and I started the Digital Production Buzz and my original plan was to have a rotating co-host. You may not know this, Michael.
Mike Horton: Well, that’s what you said.
Philip Hodgetts: My original plan was to have two or three, or maybe even four people, so it wouldn’t be too much of a burden on any one person and so we got a little bit of diversity in the show. At the end of the first show, you said, “Well, I’ll see you next week,” and I thought…
Mike Horton: I did?
Philip Hodgetts: Yes, and I said, “Oh, ok,” and he just kept coming back.
Larry Jordan: We’ve had the same problem. Michael hasn’t left this chair in a month. He just sits here and we wake him up for the show.
Mike Horton: So really I pushed myself in this.
Philip Hodgetts: Oh, not consciously. I never discussed with you the fact that I had this plan for rotating co-hosts.
Mike Horton: You could have had Steve Martin.
Philip Hodgetts: Well, Steve had moved to Arizona by then, I think.
Larry Jordan: Steve, what was your most memorable memory of doing the show? Was it an interview or a demo or the terror of doing live? What is it that sticks in your head after these years?
Steve Martin: The best thing that I remember is we still had to do a show every week on whatever we were going to do it, and I had my laptop, it was one of those MacBook Pros and I was going on vacation and said, “Well, we’ve still got to do the show,” so I brought my laptop with me to Carmel, which is up near Monterey in northern California, and it’s like all right, I’ve got to go do a show. So I had dinner, I popped a beer and, because it was noisy, I went into the closet, I hooked up on the thing and we interviewed Boris Ziminski from BORIS and I was doing that from the closet at my vacation rental in Carmel. I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
Mike Horton: That is the coolest thing ever. I’ve actually done interviews, and I think we have done interviews, with guys who had their laptop in their car and doing it via 4G.
Larry Jordan: Philip, how about you? What’s the memory that sticks in your head of doing the show?
Philip Hodgetts: Well, at this point the one that comes to mind is Jerry Hoffman was out in the snow and we tried to do the one hour beforehand pre-call and no Jerry, no cell phone service, and he got back into cell phone service just in time to do the show from his car on his cell phone on the way back down from the mountains where he’d been skiing all day.
Mike Horton: That’s kind of like oh wow technology. That’s amazing.
Philip Hodgetts: Oh, the fact that we could drag into an NAB show, in a suitcase so we didn’t run into any other issues, we could drag a production facility. Audio, but microphones, mixers, headsets, the whole works.
Larry Jordan: It has changed.
Philip Hodgetts: It has. It has changed a lot.
Larry Jordan: Steve, where can people go on the web to learn more about what you’re up to?
Steve Martin: Just www.rippletraining.com. It even sounds funny now to say ‘www’. Just say rippletraining.com. That’s where to go.
Mike Horton: And you can see Steve at NAB. You guys are going to be giving demos and presentations at that FCP exchange place, right?
Steve Martin: I’m doing one on Monday and Mark’s doing one on Tuesday.
Mike Horton: Ok.
Steve Martin: Yes, a little 30 minute session, we’ll be there.
Larry Jordan: And Steve Martin is the CEO of Ripple Training. Steve, thanks for joining us. Philip, we want to have you hang around for the next segment, so we’ll see you then and we’ll be right back after this.
Mike Horton: See you in a couple of weeks at NAB.
Larry Jordan: That’s rippletraining.com. Thanks, Steve.
Mike Horton: Thanks, Steve.
Steve Martin: Thanks.
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Larry Jordan: In this segment, we’re going to take a look forward toward NAB in Las Vegas. However, we’re going to do this a little differently. We’ve created our own round table of experts, starting with Ned Soltz. Ned is an author, an editor, an educator and consultant on all things related to digital video. He’s also a Contributing Editor for Creative Planet, a moderator on 2-Pop and Creative Cow forums and, best of all for us, a regular correspondent here on The Buzz. Hello, Ned, welcome back.
Ned Soltz: Hello, Larry, good to be back.
Larry Jordan: It’s good to see you and I’m looking forward to our conversation today, but just sit there for a second because there are some more people I need to introduce. Next is Philip Hodgetts and Philip, as we introduced in the last segment, is the CEO of Lumberjack System and a technologist in his own right. Philip, good to have you with us.
Philip Hodgetts: Thank you.
Larry Jordan: Next to Philip is Michael Kammes. Michael is the Director of Technology at Keycode Media and consults on the latest in technology and best practices in the digital media communications space. In his spare time, he’s working on a series of web videos called Five Things, which may be up to six by now, we’ll find out. Hello, Michael, welcome.
Michael Kammes: Hello, good to see you all again.
Larry Jordan: Good to have you back. But wait, there’s one more. To kick off our discussion on NAB…
Mike Horton: Me?
Larry Jordan: No.
Mike Horton: Oh.
Larry Jordan: To kick off our discussion on NAB, earlier today I asked Randi Altman to share her thoughts on what she was expecting for NAB. Randi?
Randi Altman: Well, I think you’re going to be seeing a lot about VR, camera rigs, stitching, software. From shoot to post is going to be big, and in addition to that I think there’ll be a lot of drone stuff going on and maybe some conferences on how not to hit an airplane or hurt people with it. But in addition to that, HDR is going to be big and what I’ve been hearing and what I expect to see is that the people that are interested in HDR are sort of going to learn about the different standards and who is attacking which standard with their product. They’re not going to necessarily make any purchases right now, because they want to be smart, they want to sit back and figure it out, but they want to learn as much as they can. There are multiple people working on standards for HDR, including those who are looking it from a production or live broadcast perspective and those who are looking at it from a post only perspective, so it’ll be interesting to see which manufacturers are, which one they’re picking and what workflow they’re going to target.
Larry Jordan: I think those are good comments, thank you Randi. Philip, what do you think about Randi’s thoughts?
Philip Hodgetts: I’d say that she’s absolutely spot on with HDR, drones and virtual reality. Those things are going to be the hot topics at this NAB. I think HDR is a very bright spot for NAB. Sorry.
Michael Kammes: That was a horrible pun. A horrible pun.
Mike Horton: It was an Aussie pun.
Philip Hodgetts: Honestly, if you haven’t seen HDR in action, if you haven’t seen the high dynamic range screens, the high nit value, the really bright screens, then you should absolutely go out of your way to make sure you see that at this NAB.
Mike Horton: Where do we see that? At Best Buy?
Philip Hodgetts: Well, actually you can. Visio make an HDR set.
Mike Horton: Ok.
Philip Hodgetts: But you’ll see a lot obviously at the Dolby booth at NAB.
Larry Jordan: Ned, do you think it’s HDR or is it the cameras that are going to have the focus?
Ned Soltz: Oh, I think HDR’s going to have the focus because we already have cameras that are shooting high dynamic range, we have that capability in our editing and coloring software right now, and now the whole question is how do we end up delivering that to the end user, and obviously the end user is going to need an HDR receiver in order to achieve that and we’re going to need HDR monitoring devices in order to take full advantage of being able to edit that to its ultimate advantage. For example, right now we’re seeing the new version of the Shogun, an Atomos product. At least, it’s advertised to be an HDR screen, I haven’t seen one yet. So I think HDR’s the biggest thing.
Mike Horton: Did you see them last night? Did Heather bring it?
Philip Hodgetts: She did, yes.
Mike Horton: She did?
Larry Jordan: Mhmm.
Mike Horton: Did you see it and does it look HDR?
Michael Kammes: It looks fantastic, yes.
Larry Jordan: Michael, I’ll come to you in just a second.
Michael Kammes: Sure.
Larry Jordan: Ned, do you think there’s going to be any camera news at all, or is it going to be pretty much the same old thing and they’re going to focus on what the cameras create, which is the HDR signal?
Ned Soltz: I think we’re probably going to see some cameras, but we’ve already seen announcements, for example, in Panasonic with the VariCam LT. Sony already told us at our pre-NAB press conference not to expect a replacement for the FS5 or FS7 or F5 or F55, but rather to see firmware updates. I don’t know what JVC is going to come up with, but I think we’re going to see less in terms of radical new camera introduction than we are going to see the technology catching up to what those cameras are able to do.
Larry Jordan: Michael, what do you think?
Michael Kammes: I’d agree with the majority of that. I think what the very interesting portion is going to be is high dynamic range, it’s a very esoteric term. What defines high? For camera manufacturers to say, “Hey, this is going to be high dynamic range,” well, what defines high and whose definition of high? All the different camera manufacturers have different standards.
Larry Jordan: Now, my understanding is that high dynamic range is defined as 10 bit video where you’ve got more than 256 shades of gray or more than a thousand colors. Is there another definition of high dynamic range?
Michael Kammes: Sure, obviously that’s bit depth, but we’re still talking about luminance values and when we talk about how to view HDR, we’re talking about nit count and traditional televisions are a lower nit count, around 100 or so. Newer consumer televisions are upwards of a thousand and I say upwards because they vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, so now we’re stuck with getting cameras that can capture HDR – again, what range that is – and then being able to replicate that during distribution, so it’s the Wild Wild West.
Larry Jordan: Philip?
Philip Hodgetts: Yes, that’s pretty much the way I see it, except it’s not just high dynamic range, it’s also very wide color space, a wide gamut of color, so we have a completely different way of looking at an image. Instead of our brightest whites being at the highest level of the 256 scale range or 1024 or better, we might set just normal white at two-thirds of the way up so that we’ve got room to go up and get that glint off the window or glint off the gun.
Larry Jordan: Emphasizing speculas.
Philip Hodgetts: Yes, so that you actually have somewhere for the specula to hit you in the eye with extra brightness.
Mike Horton: I’m kind of confused here. Is there no definition here? Are there no standards here? What are we talking about?
Philip Hodgetts: Ah, well unfortunately the terrific thing about standards is there are so many of them. Dolby for Dolby Vision is probably the most well known and that’s a full workflow from basically the acquisition stage through grading to…
Mike Horton: There’s no SMPTE standard? There’s a Dolby standard?
Philip Hodgetts: No, there’s not at the moment. The BBC has another way of…
Larry Jordan: No, SMPTE has a standard, Dolby Vision has a standard, the BBC has a standard, so there are at least three standards that I know of for HDR that are all defining it differently.
Michael Kammes: It’s kind of an oxymoron, three standards.
Mike Horton: Yes, three standards.
Philip Hodgetts: But we’ve been through this many, many times.
Ned Soltz: That’s going to be the difficulty in the production of the consumer sets, because really until there is some kind of standard, we’re going back to the old VHS/Betamax wars, until something ultimately emerges as a standard.
Mike Horton: Are there any HDR monitors to actually look at what…
Philip Hodgetts: No. That’s exactly the point I was going to bring up.
Michael Kammes: And that’s the expensive issue, that the tail’s wagging the dog because, as Philip pointed out, you can go to your local consumer box store and buy a monitor that does ‘HDR’, but if you try to view it in a critical viewing environment, in your edit bay, in your finishing bay, the monitors are very expensive and very temperamental.
Philip Hodgetts: If you can get them.
Mike Horton: Yes, who’s shipping them? There’s, like, two monitors in the whole of Los Angeles and one’s at Warner Bros.
Larry Jordan: There is a consumer standard called Premium UHD, which is the wide color gamut, HDR signal, 4K, which is now a brand which has been licensed to multiple consumer set tops.
Michael Kammes: But what’s the nit value on that?
Larry Jordan: What I’m saying is there’s that name which defines it from a consumer point of view, but you’re right, so far we don’t have any good HDR monitors that we can use in post.
Philip Hodgetts: We don’t have any, period. Dolby has a couple of monitors, but you can’t buy those monitors, you can only go to a facility that has one of the monitors.
Larry Jordan: See, that’s what I think we’re going to see at NAB. I think we’re going to see some HDR monitors.
Mike Horton: Monitors?
Michael Kammes: Panasonic and Sony have them both on the road map, it’s just whether they’re going to release them and whether you have to give up your first born… you may have to give up in order to get one of those monitors.
Ned Soltz: You’re going to have give up multiple generations of first born, actually.
Larry Jordan: Let’s shift gears out of HDR. Is there something else that’s caught your eye, Ned, that we should pay attention to at NAB?
Mike Horton: Say VR, say it.
Ned Soltz: I think we should pay attention to VR.
Mike Horton: Good, it’ll be at the Supermeet.
Ned Soltz: …with this Nokia device that everybody seems to be touting. We’ll probably see GoPro’s entry that they’ve been touting, and we’re seeing more and more deliverables and software going along with it. So I think VR is going to be the next big subtopic and I see that as ultimately having more traction than 3D, which I didn’t believe when it came out a few years ago and I can now sit back and say I told you so. But I think VR is not 3D, that’s here to stay.
Larry Jordan: All right, well, let’s shift over to Michael. Michael, you made a good point, that VR is actually a whole lot of different things, so what is it?
Michael Kammes: Well, just like HDR, there are three different areas it falls into. You have the acquisition of VR or 360, you have the editorial or post production process of VR and 360 and then you have the exhibition, the consuming, and we’re going to see developments in each one of those areas. We’re going to see cameras – we saw a couple of weeks ago over at Alpha Dogs the Jaunt camera, which is doing the stitching on the fly.
Mike Horton: Amazing. 24 lenses.
Michael Kammes: Yes, doing the stitching on the fly and I think we’re also going to see, for all you Mac heads out there, the ability to actually do VR in post on the Mac. It’s traditionally been PC for stitching, but we’re now seeing the emergence of some software that can do it on the Mac side.
Mike Horton: Well, you have Tim Dashwood’s plug-in, which does it on Final Cut Pro X and Premiere and then you have Metal, which also does it in After Effects. Then there’s Nuke, but you need some heavy iron and unfortunately the Macs are not considered heavy iron.
Michael Kammes: Well, it’s not only just 360 in every direction, it’s also high frame rate. I believe that the minimum standard is going to be 60 frames per second and a lot of the device manufacturers are approving 75 and 80. It’s only above 72, 75 frames per second that we lose the perception of flicker. At that point, it starts to look solid and real to us, so really do need to have high frame rate in there. But again, who’s going to use this? I don’t see the traditional Hollywood market or television going to VR, at least in the next couple of years.
Larry Jordan: So where do you think the market is?
Michael Kammes: Games, absolutely.
Mike Horton: Well, games, obviously.
Michael Kammes: Experiences.
Mike Horton: That’s CGI though.
Michael Kammes: I think if we look at museums, I think if you look at those one on one engagements, where you want to immerse yourself completely.
Mike Horton: Medical, news.
Philip Hodgetts: Yes, yes.
Michael Kammes: I think it’s very difficult. I think over at HPA this year, someone was talking about VR and they said, “I haven’t seen a good story, I’ve seen good concepts.” I think that was a great way of phrasing it.
Mike Horton: But that’s what we’re going to explore at the Supermeet, whether you can tell a compelling story in VR and 360. We think you can but nobody’s cracked it yet. That’s what’s so much fun about the world right now, is that there are no rules. We are now just making up the rules, and so if somebody finds that rule and if they’re working on it right now, Doug Liman, who’s one of the great directors, is going to be doing a Netflix series in VR, so it is a cinematic 360 series, so you’re going to be telling a story in this stuff, so maybe he’ll crack it, I don’t know, or maybe not.
Larry Jordan: So are drones now invisible? Are drones going to have any kind of…
Philip Hodgetts: No, no, drones will be huge. It’s such a flexible platform and there are so many ways that they can be used.
Mike Horton: You know what? I don’t even think you’re going to need the nets any more because now they have those little sensors so it’s not going hit people and they’re not going to hit each other and all that kind of stuff.
Philip Hodgetts: Back in 2012, I was doing a show that required me to learn to fly a drone and I just saw on the company’s wall, their road map for software and I thought, “Why am I spending 45 minutes a day learning how to fly this, doing strange things in your head as to what’s forward and backwards? The software is going to do it all within a couple of years,” and that is exactly what’s happened.
Larry Jordan: Ned, what are your thoughts on drones?
Ned Soltz: But the laws have to be worked out and they have to be consistent. For example, sitting here right over the GW Bridge from New York City and Bergen County, we can’t fly a drone anywhere in Bergen County. You virtually can’t fly a drone anywhere in New York City, so I’d have to go way out to the country to do it. The restrictive laws are certainly going to have to be dealt with for this to be totally viable.
Larry Jordan: But here in LA, we’re getting almost daily drones that are buzzing planes at LAX and causing near midair disasters, and I think that there has to be a balance between being allowed to fly a drone anywhere and hoping that you get on a plane and get back off again, isn’t there?
Ned Soltz: Oh, of course, that’s the problem. It accelerated too rapidly into too easily a consumer accessible device and so the idiots take over.
Larry Jordan: Michael, if we don’t think HDR, and we don’t think VR and we don’t think drones, what should we look for at NAB?
Michael Kammes: There are two things and neither of them is sexy, I’m sorry. One of them is asset management. It’s up there with codecs, right, Mike?
Mike Horton: Yes. Get a close-up of this.
Michael Kammes: I like to refer to it as automation, because good asset management isn’t just tracking media and being able to retrieve and find it when you need it, but also those automated tasks, whether it be transcoding, FTPing, sending emails. Let’s spend your time creating as opposed to media managing.
Larry Jordan: Ok, so media management. What’s another one?
Michael Kammes: The other one is security. There have been a lot of high level hacks at studios, but also unscripted reality shows having their systems hacked into or having dailies lost and there’s still the old, “Well, give the hard drive to a PA and fly him to where he’s going so no-one gets that footage,” so being able to encrypt that footage…
Mike Horton: Really?
Michael Kammes: Yes.
Mike Horton: Wow.
Michael Kammes: Being able to encrypt that footage so no-one else can get it is a huge issue.
Larry Jordan: Philip, what are your hot top hits that we haven’t covered yet?
Philip Hodgetts: Michael has all the sexy topics, so I’ll have to go to augmented reality.
Mike Horton: Oh yes, absolutely.
Philip Hodgetts: Which is quite different from VR, which is where you go into another space. Well, augmented reality is where that other space comes into the real world, so you look at a scene through a camera lens, usually on a Smartphone of some kind, and extra information is overlaid onto that image. You can do a geolocated run, so you have to go to a certain point and then find the bug or the E3.
Mike Horton: What did Microsoft have?
Michael Kammes: That demo was fantastic.
Mike Horton: They’re dealing with Civil War battlefields where you can watch on in iPad and see the actual battle.
Philip Hodgetts: You go up to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Las Vegas not Paris, Texas, and they give you an iPad and anywhere on the top of the Paris tower you can look and see the view from the real Eiffel Tower, look up, look down, look around.
Larry Jordan: That’s pretty cool.
Mike Horton: Yes, isn’t that cool?
Michael Kammes: Yes.
Larry Jordan: Michael, what’s your take for NAB? What have we not talked about that you want to mention quickly?
Mike Horton: He just brought it up, augmented reality which we hadn’t talked about. Other than that, I have nothing to say, Larry, I’m sorry.
Larry Jordan: Ned, quickly, what’s your quick take? What have we not mentioned that we need to talk about, quick?
Ned Soltz: We haven’t talked about lighting and I think we’ve seen tremendous advances in lighting over the past few years and I hope we’ll see that continual development this year at NAB with high CRIs, with plasma, with remote phosphor. I think there are a lot of advances in lighting technology.
Mike Horton: So LEDs will have the full spectrum of the light this year or is it going to be five years from now?
Ned Soltz: Like… for example, you’ve got a full spectrum, you don’t have any green spikes, you’ve got a very high quality LED. If you look at the remote phosphor lights, like from BBS or from Cineo, you’re seeing a very even light with a full spectrum and I think we’ll see some announcements at NAB in that regard as well.
Larry Jordan: Ned, I want to thank you so much. Ned Soltz is the Contributing Editor for Creative Planet Networks. His website is creativeplanetnetwork.com. Ned, as always, a delight chatting with you. Michael, thank you for joining us.
Mike Horton: Thanks Ned.
Ned Soltz: It was a pleasure.
Larry Jordan: The Director of Technology for Keycode Media at keycodemedia.com; Philip Hodgetts, CEO of Intelligent Assistance and Philip is at philiphodgetts.com among other places; and Mike, you don’t get to leave. We’re going to talk with Cirina Catania right after this.
Mike Horton: Oh my gosh.
Larry Jordan: Thanks.
Larry Jordan: Cirina Catania is the Supervising Producer of The Buzz, as well as a filmmaker, journalist and former Senior Executive with United Artists and MGM. She’s also one of the founders of the Sundance Film Festival and today she’s coming to us… I have no idea where Cirina is.
Mike Horton: Yes, where is Cirina?
Larry Jordan: We’ve got to find out. Hello, Cirina, where are you?
Cirina Catania: Hi! I’m talking to you on my cell phone from the East Coast.
Larry Jordan: From the East Coast? Are we talking Pennsylvania here or New York?
Cirina Catania: Well, any moment I think the White House helicopter that patrols every night is going to come right over my head, so we’re going to hear a helicopter any minute now. I closed the windows but it doesn’t help because it’s pretty close.
Larry Jordan: Cirina, tonight we’ve been looking back and looking head, looking back at the start of The Buzz and looking ahead at NAB. You’ve been with The Buzz for almost nine years. What first got you interested in podcasting?
Cirina Catania: Oh my gosh. Well, I started in radio many, many years ago when I was 20 years old, I worked for AFN in Stuttgart and so that’s what got me started.
Larry Jordan: I remember you sent me a photograph of you as a DJ. I still have that photograph framed on my desk, it’s very cool. What was it that caught your ear about radio? Because television was still going strong then. What was it about audio only?
Cirina Catania: One thing about audio is you can do anything with it – you could be anybody, you can bring anybody in. In the old days at AFN we would be playing characters, and so every night we would walk in and somebody would have left us a recording from the night shift and it was always really fun. I’m still friends with a lot of those people. But podcasting, I remember being at the very first New Media Expo. How many years ago was that? I think podcasting started, well, you covered it earlier in the show, but I remember the lunch that we had nine years ago when you said you were thinking about getting involved in podcasting and would I be interested and I said, “Absolutely, absolutely.”
Larry Jordan: I remember that lunch very well.
Mike Horton: I remember the New Media Expos. That was at a convention center in downtown LA.
Larry Jordan: 2005 and 2006, yes. It was huge.
Cirina Catania: Even before that.
Mike Horton: It was huge.
Cirina Catania: I remember the very first year of the New Media Expo. We were tweeting for the first time, Twitter had just started, and there were maybe six or seven of us in the halls of the New Media Expo tweeting and nobody knew what that was.
Cirina Catania: Do you know, when you started the Larry Jordan version of The Buzz, DSLR cameras had just been invented.
Larry Jordan: To the shock of the video guys in Canon, if I remember correctly, because they didn’t even know that camera was coming.
Cirina Catania: Yes, yes.
Mike Horton: When was it, by the way? Was it 2006? 2005?
Larry Jordan: We took over the show in November of 2007, so we’re going on nine years.
Mike Horton: 2007, all right.
Larry Jordan: Cirina was but a child when first we started.
Mike Horton: She was.
Cirina Catania: I wish.
Mike Horton: She was a teenager.
Larry Jordan: She was a teenager.
Cirina Catania: I wish.
Mike Horton: A bobbysoxer.
Larry Jordan: Cirina, you’ve been producing the show now forever. What’s the process of booking the show? How do you decide what guests to get? Wear your producer hat and explain how that process works.
Cirina Catania: I think you have to be a bit of a futurist to know how to book The Buzz. You have to be thinking ahead. I’ve heard a little bit of the show and we’re all talking about what’s going to be happening at NAB, but by the time it gets to NAB it’s already here. So if we’re going to be one step ahead of the industry we need to be thinking about what’s going to be happening at next year’s NAB.
Cirina Catania: I think Philip’s augmented reality discussion was really pertinent, but back to booking The Buzz. I just think about what the future’s going to be, and go after it and I’m really proud of the fact that, over the last few years, we’ve done, what, over 1500 interviews and almost 1400 of those are new people that we’re bringing in that had not been on The Buzz before, everything from covering fair use to copyright issues, long before the general public was even really aware of it. We had our noses to the grindstone and I think that’s always fun. That’s what makes it fun for me.
Mike Horton: Do you have the stats on that, how many shows, how many guests, that kind of thing?
Larry Jordan: 2100 guests and more than 445 shows.
Mike Horton: Wow.
Larry Jordan: Which is pretty incredible.
Mike Horton: That’s pretty incredible.
Cirina Catania: Yes.
Larry Jordan: What are some of your favorite bookings? Who are some of your favorite guests?
Cirina Catania: I love when we started talking about copyright issues before the people even know about it, because we could warn our independent filmmakers. But I also love new technology, I like talking about the cinematographers when they come in. Remember when we first started, nobody even know what BOCA was. But it’s like asking me who my favorite child is! I can talk about issues. I think that cinematography and the growth and the new cameras, the new lights, the new technology, Michael your favorite thing with codecs have changed.
Cirina Catania: The legal issues, there have been some major legal issues. Remember when Ivy started and got kicked out and people have tried since? Watching the different changes in distribution, when Netflix first came about, and Amazon, Hulu and talking to our filmmakers about how to best maximize their business. That’s always good and when people write in and they say that you have made a difference in their lives in terms of being successful, that means a lot. So I guess those would be some of my favorite topics.
Larry Jordan: Grant in our live chat also says one of his favorite sessions was Larry’s cable winding session, which was one that Mike loved a great deal.
Mike Horton: That’s what you do at NAB. Oh my gosh, you have to do that this year. You’re going to be at NAB and you have to do that. You have to do that, like, Thursday, right?
Larry Jordan: I will do that Thursday.
Mike Horton: And put it out there, have everybody come and watch you do it, and I guarantee there’ll be a thousand people there. Everybody wants to see how you can roll a cable.
Larry Jordan: Without having kinks in it.
Cirina Catania: It’s important!
Larry Jordan: Anybody can roll a cable, but not to have kinks in it.
Mike Horton: No, not the way you do it. You’re a real man.
Cirina Catania: It’s important, right? You’ve got to roll it right or you’re going to kink it and you won’t be able to use it. But in the last nine years, we’ve also watched the NLE wars between Avid, Premiere and Final Cut, and I think things are settling down and people are realizing that if you’re going to be successful, you really need to know more than one.
Larry Jordan: And that took a long time, and I don’t think it’s been fully settled in yet.
Mike Horton: Well, a lot of preached it, it just took a lot of time.
Larry Jordan: NAB is less than three weeks away and NAB is my favorite toy store. What are you looking forward to this year?
Cirina Catania: I spent a few hours on the Sony lot with Film Light and Sony a couple of weeks ago and looking at all the new HDR monitors that are out that the major studios are using, color correction on those new monitors, and they’re actually correcting now to 1000 nits.
Larry Jordan: Wow! Do you remember who the monitors are made by?
Mike Horton: Yes, who are the monitors made by?
Cirina Catania: Sony.
Mike Horton: Really?
Cirina Catania: Sony. Yes, Sony has some new monitors, so I’m thinking that they’re going to be demoing those at NAB; and I know that it may be a little bit too early for us to think about HDR, but remember a few ago when we were talking about HD and we were saying, “No”? But I had gone to NAB and been in some meetings and I said, “No, if Sony’s developing monitors for HD, then I know the whole industry’s going to move towards that.”
Cirina Catania: The major studios right now for films are grading the features for standard def, high def and also projecting to the future to 1,000, and they’re also talking about eventually going to 4,000, but that’s going to hurt our eyes, the contrast ratio in 4,000 is way too high. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the HDR products and I think Philip’s right on with augmented reality. I think it’s a little bit too early for everyone to get involved in VR, but we’re moving that way. I think that for gaming, VR’s already there and I actually bought a couple of Google Cardboards to play with and the Oculus Rift is fun. It’s not like 3D, where you have to wear those silly glasses.
Mike Horton: You wear silly goggles.
Cirina Catania: Yes, those silly goggles. But when you’re gaming, those are really nice and now they have the games where you’re actually totally immersed and you’re on treadmills, so not only are you seeing in 360 but you’re feeling everything and running, literally physically running in 360. I think one thing I’m looking forward to this NAB is to see what has happened since CES with 360 sound. Sound, I think, is going to be important.
Mike Horton: We’re going to be doing that at the Supermeet too, 360 sound.
Cirina Catania: Oh great, that’s great.
Larry Jordan: Now, we’ve talked so far, last session and this session, we’ve talked drones, we’ve talked VR, augmented reality, HDR. Is there a trend that we haven’t mentioned that you’re keeping your eye on that’s maybe not hit mainstream but has got some intriguing potential?
Cirina Catania: Oh, Philip’s going to love this. It’s metadata. It’s the change in the way we use metadata and I think not just in the way we’ve been talking about…
Larry Jordan: You are so depressing.
Cirina Catania: I know, it’s your favorite thing, Michael.
Mike Horton: Yes, it’s fun.
Cirina Catania: Not just the way we use it in production and post production, but also the way ultimately it’s going to be needed for archiving, because what is the use of archiving millions and millions of hours of footage if you can’t find it? I think that that’s going to be a key.
Cirina Catania: I also think that the new micro cameras, because of the proliferation of drones, are kind of fun. There are going to be a lot of new micro cameras announced this year. Let me think what else. I think metadata and the way we handle that in production. Of course, I’m a little prejudiced because of my involvement in Lumberjack, but I have seen the way that it’s changing a lot of the ways people shoot.
Larry Jordan: So are you working on any new projects right now?
Cirina Catania: I have three films in post production.
Mike Horton: Wow.
Cirina Catania: Yes, three films in post production, one of which we discussed last year at Supermeet. It’s the ‘Kionte Storey’ film about the Marine corporal who lost a leg in Afghanistan and that’s finally finished, principle photography’s wrapped on that and we’re going into post.
Larry Jordan: Well, it sounds wonderful. Are you yourself going to be able to make it to NAB? Am I going to be able to buy you dinner there?
Mike Horton: Yes, are you going to be there?
Larry Jordan: Or are you still debating?
Cirina Catania: I was going to try to stay home and work on the films, but I think I may leave the crew to do that and come visit, at least for a little while.
Mike Horton: I hope so.
Larry Jordan: Michael just inherited a whole lot of money, so he’s going to take you out to a very fancy dinner, just to let you know.
Mike Horton: Absolutely.
Cirina Catania: That sounds great.
Mike Horton: We are going to have steak.
Cirina Catania: I think NAB is really important for another reason, and that’s the personal connection, and I think one thing that we’re going to start seeing too is much more inclusion in our industry. A lot of the guilds are getting more and more involved in that and I think there are going to be a lot of changes; and also, I don’t know if we’ve discussed the new financial models yet, because distribution remains in constant flux. So our financial models that we’ve been using for the last nine years are nonexistent now, and the struggle between union and non-union – and Michael, I don’t know if you agree with me, but I really do think there’s going to be a shift more towards union because people are realizing that they need that brotherhood behind them to help support them in a way that being out there by yourself as an independent doesn’t often do.
Mike Horton: Well, it depends on our Supreme Court.
Larry Jordan: Yes. Cirina, what website can people go to keep track of what you’re thinking about?
Cirina Catania: They can go to filmvault.us or thecataniagroup.com.
Larry Jordan: Thecataniagroup.com and Cirina Catania herself. Cirina, as always, a delight working with you. We’ll chat with you again soon.
Mike Horton: See you in a few weeks, Cirina.
Cirina Catania: Thank you.
Larry Jordan: Take care.
Mike Horton: You get out to NAB.
Cirina Catania: Bye! See you at NAB.
Larry Jordan: Bye bye.
Mike Horton: Bye!
Cirina Catania: Bye!
Larry Jordan: It’s time for a Buzz Flashback. Five years ago today…
Unknown woman (archive): It’s an installation that engages different kinds of media, so it might be something that brings in sculpture with animation and then maybe a real time interactive element, so it’s really something that’s activating a number of your senses. I think that we have an aesthetic that is looking towards the future and a lot of the brands that we’re working with want to do just that. They’re trying to position themselves for the years to come.
Larry Jordan: This was a Buzz Flashback.
Larry Jordan: The Buzz has always responded to changes in our industry and now changes are coming to The Buzz. Our program is moving to new owners and to a new format. Starting next week, The Buzz is partnering with thalo.com and doddleme.com to provide a more comprehensive look at our industry from the perspective of both filmmaking and film viewing.
Larry Jordan: Thalo.com is an online resource for creative individuals which covers everything from fine arts to performing arts to filmmaking and everything in between, while Doddleme is a leading online resource for the video and film industry. Doddle is the perfect partner for The Buzz and we’re excited to be adding another perspective and dimension to our show.
Larry Jordan: With this new partnership, the show itself will be changing. For now, we’re returning to our roots as an audio only podcast. The show will still be live, still every Thursday and still posted to iTunes and The Buzz website, but we need to think more about the best way to use video for the show, so this switch allows us time to rethink and revise.
Larry Jordan: I’m also delighted to announce that both Mike and I will be staying with the show plus, because of our new partnership, we’re able to extend our resources to include the Thalo and Doddle teams. This allows The Buzz to increase its coverage and focus on the media industry, providing news and interviews with the people that make media possible.
Larry Jordan: Also for the eighth straight year, The Buzz is heading back to NAB. During the four days of the trade show, we’ll originate 13 live shows, interviewing more than 50 industry leaders to help you keep up with all the latest announcements at the show. You can learn more at nabshowbuzz.com, which will be updated next week with a show schedule and a guest list.
Larry Jordan: On a personal note, The Buzz has been an amazing experience for me for the last nine years, as both the Executive Producer and the host. The Buzz team has created more than 500 shows, interviewed more than 2,100 guests and covered our industry more thoroughly than any other podcast on the planet. I’m very proud of that record and proud of the team that put it together, starting with Cirina Catania. Cirina is the heart of The Buzz. Her energy, enthusiasm and insight have discovered guests and trends long before they reached market consciousness. I’m deeply grateful for all of her hard work and I’m very proud of the technical team behind the scenes.
Larry Jordan: We’ve had a lot of people working on the show over the years; a lot of students found it a great way to discover how broadcast media actually works. But there are four people I need to mention by name – Debbie Price, Brianna Murphy, Adrian Price and Megan Paulos. Without their help, this show would not exist.
Larry Jordan: As I said at the beginning, this is a time of change both for us in the industry and for The Buzz itself. Our new partnership provides exciting new potential with many very cool ideas in the planning stage and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you in the time to come. Through it all, The Buzz will be here to help you make sense of this wild, crazy, constantly changing industry that we’re in and I look forward to talking with you next week on The Buzz, and I’ll see you at NAB.
Larry Jordan: You know, Mike, change is coming and I’m glad to have you with us.
Mike Horton: I’ve got a tear in my eye. I’m sorry, that was wonderful.
Larry Jordan: Thank you. Well, the thing I like about it is that we’re switching to something a little bit different but the team stays the same.
Mike Horton: That’s right, you don’t have to look at this face any more, but you can hear this wonderful melodious voice.
Larry Jordan: You have a perfect face for radio, Michael, you know that.
Mike Horton: Exactly. Thank you very much, Larry. No, I’m thrilled because this has been a tough few weeks, few months for me and you, but especially you, and I’m very, very proud of what you’ve done and I’m very, very proud of being a part of this.
Larry Jordan: Oh, we are delighted to have you with us. It makes all the difference, thank you.
Larry Jordan: I want to thank our guests for this evening – Steve Martin, the CEO of Ripple Training, Philip Hodgetts, the CEO of Lumberjack System, Michael Kammes, the Director of Technology for Keycode Media, Ned Soltz, Contributing Editor for Creative Plant Networks, Randi Altman, the Editor in Chief at postperspective.com, and Cirina Catania, the Supervising Producer for The Buzz.
Larry Jordan: There’s a lot of history in our industry and it’s all posted to our website, at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Here you’ll find thousands of interviews all online and all available to you today; and remember to sign up for our free weekly show newsletter that comes out every Friday.
Larry Jordan: You can talk with us on Twitter, @DPBuZZ, and Facebook at digitalproductionbuzz.com. Our theme music is composed by Nathan Dugie Turner with additional music provided by smartsound.com. Text transcripts are provided by Take 1 Transcription – visit take1.tv to learn how they can help you, and one of the cool things about transcriptions is it makes it really easy to find the highlights of the show like Mike’s jokes.
Larry Jordan: Our Supervising Producer is Cirina Catania; our Show Producer is Debbie Price. Our production team is led by Brianna Murphy and includes Ed Golya, James Miller and Debbie Price. On behalf of Mike Horton, my name’s Larry Jordan and we are delighted to always have you watch and listen to The Buzz. Thanks for joining us this evening.
Mike Horton: Goodbye, everybody.
Larry Jordan: Take care.
Announcer #1: The Digital Production Buzz was brought to you by Other World Computing, providing quality hardware solutions and extensive technical support to the worldwide computer industry since 1988; and by imagineproducts.com, specializing in workflow applications for over 25 years.
