I was invited to the June Motion Picture Collective Meeting on plug-ins. It was held at Pratt Institute in New York City.

I got there about 45 minutes early and there was no one there! After about 30 minutes I started to worry that I came to the wrong place. As I was walking around I ran into Wes Plate of Automatic Duck. We chatted for a bit and then people started to roll in.

The pizza, sponsored by Sony, was incredible. Seriously, some of the best I've ever had. I had some veggie concoction, but Michael Vitti, head of MoPic Collective told me they also had some Cajun Shrimp pizza, but they only ordered one pie. Sounds fantastic!

The meeting started with an introduction and then Frank Garfi and Marc Fratto talked about their film Zombies Anonymous. Two words: Gratuitous violence. Their talk was pretty interesting though. They've taken the zombie story and flipped it around, making it a statement about how Arabs were treated after 9-11.

After that, Juan Martinez and Andrew Shipsides talked about Sony's EX Cameras.

Wes Plate from Automatic Duck came up and presented his products. Since there were so many editors in the audience, there was a lot of interest in his FCP products, especially.

My turn. Right before the show began, we were told we have an extra 15 minutes to fill. My presentation was planned to be exactly 20 minutes! Haha. I began asking the audience some questions about editing technique vs. software knowledge and then talked about Toolfarm. I presented Boris Continuum Complete and as usual, people are blown away by the Motion Key filter. I also had quite a bit of interest in the BCC Pan & Zoom filter which gives the Ken Burns style effect. I had a bit of time at the end, so I quickly showed Red Giant's Primatte Keyer, since keying seems to be a hot topic lately.

Next Michael Vitti showed Zaxwerks ProAnimator, then Jason Diamond showed Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks, which is always a crowd pleaser. I can't help but think that Zombies Anonymous could have benefited from a touch of Looks! Jason did a great job of presenting Looks and demo'd with some footage from a music video he had recently finished.

They also had an auction that night with tons of stuff.

Anyway, it was a good meeting and it was fun to get to New York City again. Thanks Michael Vitti for the invitation and the shirt. I love free shirts! It was great to see everyone in NYC, especially my old buddy Jim G. of the Toolfarm Expert Forum and Chris Tack, one of my former students who headed out to NYC after graduation. I also met quite a few new people from the NYC area. I saw Mario Lopez at a hot dog stand too! He's buff!

Labels: Automatic Duck, Boris, Continuum Complete, Event, Magic Bullet Looks, Moving Picture Collective, Primatte Keyer, ProAnimator, Red Giant, Zaxwerks