Despite being a slightly unusual year for NAB Show overall, it ended up being the strongest one I’ve had personally.
Three years ago, I was presenting what would eventually become Sim-Plates. At that point, it was just a concept, an idea, and a workflow built around physical cameras.
Two years ago, I showed a real-time version built in Unreal Engine. It was an important step, but it came with the real-time limitations and would never be as photo-real as where we are today, just a limitation of Unreal that can’t be overcome.
Last year, I introduced Sim-Plates using our current pipeline, but we were still refining key parts of the workflow and figuring out how to make it truly production-ready.
This year was different. For the first time, we were able to present production-ready Sim-Plates, and many of the plates we showcased have already been used for car-process on feature films and television shows. Seeing that evolution, especially over the past year, has been pretty incredible.
The Booth
We had the honor of being apart of The Studio B&H booth with Danielo Garcia this year along with a lot of our partners and friends.
We were able to give demos to so many wonderful people in our industry, and overall very well received.
On the Studio side, Danielo Garcia , Steve Manella , Sherif Sadek , Clarissa Fulgieri , Henry “Fisch” H. Fischer
Geoff George DOP for the booth this year, he helped all along the way with the design, choosing content, framing up the shots and setting up the lighting with gaffer Keaton Bayne as well as give a few demonstrations.
ASSIMILATE Live FX for driving the wall, Image-Based Lighting and also taking the tracking in and doing the live-composited windshield reflections which were a big hit. Jeff Edson , Matthias Aderhold , Alexander MacLean
Sim-Plates for content and general design/demo.
ZEISS Cinematography for lenses and camera tracking with CinCraft Scenario. Nick Hayes, Tanner Grimshaw , David Warner
Gloshineled 1.9 MV Pro Led Wall Xuanyi (Leah) Wang .
Silverdraft Computers for Media Server Amy Gile
On the Lighting side:
Mimiks Kino Flo Lighting Systems and Megapixel Processor
Creamsource Vortex 8s James Amorosino
Quasar Science Ossium 406 array.
ARRI Orbiters (as well as the Alexa 35).
Our After Party
One of the personal highlights for many people, including myself, was hanging out at the Sim-Plates/Assimilate After-Party, which lasted til 4am!
Last minute I decided to rent a “Bungalow” apartment at the Cosmo hotel, which overlooks the Marquee Club (the club where the BH Party is).
I think over 100 people showed up, and it never felt crowded since there were 3 floors, several balconies and a rooftop hotub!
Some highlights include Benjamin Dynice , Tim Kang , Erik Kjonaas , Jay Holben on the roof (IYKYK), the 4am crew Erick Geisler , Jess Loren , Nathan Bazley and Kevin Baillie , the “secrets” crew Ames O’Connor, Gülnigar Ralph-Nurhikim, MFA . Thanks to everyone who brought food and beverages, next year i’ll be more organized.
This is going to be a tradition I do every year, as it’s a great time to either continue the party or chill and relax after the BH Party. If you got any pictures, send them my way, I didn’t really get any!
The food
Steak dinner with Ivan Reel and Geoff George
Late night setup Mediterranean food while I tried to help Aleksii Gutiantov set up his booth (I was just moral support).
Breakfast club with Light Sail VR , Matthew Celia , Jeff Sousa and Anthony Morales
Secret Pizza more than once.
The Last Supper with the Assimilate crew + Michel Suissa , Tim Kang , Dash Escrofani
Mad Greek on the way back with the Assimilate crew and ran into Libor Cevelik and Samuel Wilson Fares!
Post NAB Event
Then, because apparently we don’t need sleep, we decided to do a full on Car Process open house at E11 Studios in Hollywood, just 2 days after NAB, to show the demo to people who couldn’t make it to NAB.
Matt Ryan was the DP and helped us set up a nice little demo, Alexander MacLean showcased the real-time reflections. I ran the full demo from my MacBook Pro (3x 4k processors + Mimik) partially because I wanted to prove a point that you don’t necessarily need a crazy expensive computer to run a shoot.
I plan to do more events like this…just maybe not right after NAB haha 🙂
Friends
So great running into friends old and new (if not listed above)!
Michel Suissa , Matthew Celia , Anthony Morales , Jeff Sousa , Aleksii Gutiantov , Robert Evans , Noah Kadner , Monica Reina , Estelle McGechie , John Corser , Timothy Ciancio , Mike Sill , Erica Manni , Duke DuQuesnay Dash Escrofani , Chris Barnett , Frieder Hochheim , Alexx Henry , Rachel Lively , Danny Ho , Jeremy Hochman , Michael Geissler , Tony Aguila , Eric B. Roth , Ben Danielowski , Mathew Leland , Jim Berndt , gary adcock , Craig Weiss , Justin Talley , Christopher Jones , Michael Mansouri , Darin Friedmann , David Hall , Nate Heartt , Dan Duran , Libor Cevelik , Samuel Wilson Fares (Mad Greek for life), Ritchie Argue , Ivan Reel , Carin Mazaira , Christopher Nichols , Elijah Welch , Eliot Mack , Mike Foster , James Amorosino , Evan Glantz , Data Annen , Oksana Dudko , Carbonara, Corey , Michael Korpi , Paul Galando , Jacqueline Cooper , Edward Dawson-Taylor , Andrew Cochrane , Erik Weaver , Lucas Wilson , Jason Diamond , Josh Diamond , Cristian Dominguez , Steve Giralt , Daniel Colmenares , Devon Hubner , Paul Debevec , Drew Suppa , Hardie Tankersley , Jacques Stroweis , Troy Pierce , Tema Staig , Ron Sill ICLS