The Spotlite: The Force Awakens

This week: the behind-the-scenes crew congregates in Las Vegas, the design crowd heads to Toronto, and The Force Awakens in the Orange Room.

NAB Show

The NAB Show, National Association of Broadcasters' yearly event, hails itself as the place “Where Content Comes to Life.” Covering the content pipeline from creation to consumption, this year’s NAB Show brought content to life in more ways than one.

Some technical standouts came from camera makers Blackmagic Design and dynamic camera mount experts Edelkrone. Blackmagic Design announced a few new camera designs, including the Micro Cinema Camera. This mini Super 16mm digital camera is available in both 1080p and 4K versions. The camera’s tiny size, roughly 10 ounces in weight, allows you to mount it on a helmet or attach it to a drone. You can remotely control this camera through it’s new expansion port with PWM and S.Bus connections.

This year, Edelkrone announced a slew of fun camera mount gadgets. The PocketRIG² is a lightweight hinged mount that is leveraged against the camera operator's body for image stabilization. This easy-to-use rig is a dream for all of those cinematographers fighting arm fatigue.

The PocketSKATER² is a simple wheeled mount that gives you the power to record incredibly smooth, professional looking panned shots. It also has an extendable hinged mount for added versatility.

This year's standout Edelkrone product has to be the SliderPLUS. Because this slider has a dolly mechanism, it allows for more range than a conventional slider. This is a great tool for precision panned shots, zoom-in and out shots, and timelapse programmability.

FITC Toronto

FITC, or the “Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity.” conference, came to life in Toronto, Canada, and the world’s design elite flocked to see what the event had in store. Packed with speakers, workshops, demos and more, this year’s conference had surprises for everyone.

In addition to the usual activities, FITC introduced their newest feature, The HUB Room. This area was a hands-on, interactive space where conference goers were encouraged to participate various art projects, ranging from exploring a VR spaces with Samsung, to 3D printing in less than 15 minutes with MakeLab, to doodling on paper (yes, regular ol’ paper) with Draw by Night Toronto.

MakeLab at DX3 Toronto

Highly popular 3D artist, Beeple, held a workshop called Everyday, playing off his ongoing online project in which he creates a single piece of artwork, well, everyday. With 2908 consecutive days of completed works, Beeple is currently on his 9th round where he renders images in Cinema 4D. In his 45 minute workshop, Beeple aimed to teach the crowds how to pick an “everyday” project to make it more “objective”, how to tailor the process so that it’s not a momentum kill, and the importance of making your work public. In Beeple’s own words: “By posting the results online, I'm ‘less’ likely to throw down a big pile of ass-shit even though most of the time I still do because I suck ass.”

Transparent Machines™ from beeple on Vimeo.

Star Wars in the Orange Room

Yes, we have all felt a disturbance in the Force, and it has manifested as the latest Star Wars Episode VII trailer, “The Force Awakens”. This latest episode won’t hit theaters until December, but that hasn’t stopped the internet, or Matthew McConaughey, from going bonkers over this newly released trailer.

Premiering at the Star Wars Celebration yesterday in Anaheim, CA, this trailer shows us tidbits such as Poe Dameron flying an X-Wing, more familiar characters like Hans Solo and Chewbacca, and this mysteriously awesome-looking metallic Stormtrooper.

Carson Daly helped introduce the new trailer by dressing up as an imperial Stormtrooper in the Today Show’s state-of-the-art Orange Room. This area of the Today Show studio is primarily used for discussing trending topics. BLI built the Orange Room’s Instagram video-question app with our proprietary social moderation platform, and we're happy to see that the OR featured one of our greatest all-time loves.

We can definitely say that we are NOT tired of all these Star Wars...