2011 HPA Tech Retreat Call for Presentations

This is a call for proposed presentations for the Hollywood Post Alliance’s 2011 Tech Retreat (the 17th annual), February 15-18, at Rancho Las Palmas, in Rancho Mirage, California (Palm Springs area).

The event attracts the top technical executives of Hollywood studios, television networks, post facilities, cinema exhibitors, professional and consumer-electronics manufacturers, cable and satellite interests, government, military, academia, etc.  It is not restricted to Hollywood (attendees and presenters have come from places ranging from New Zealand to Norway) or to post (it has covered image acquisition, forensic analysis, archiving, psychophysics, bit-rate reduction, conditional access, copy protection, and more).  Anything having to do with motion-picture (including video) technology (and related audio and data) is appropriate for the program.

There are four ways to participate (other than simply attending): sponsorship, technology demonstrations, breakfast roundtables, and the main program.

For sponsorship options, please contact HPA executive director Eileen Kramer <[email protected]>.

For technology-demonstration space, please stand by.  Details are still being worked out for the upcoming event.  A call for technology demonstrations will be issued later.

For moderating breakfast roundtables, please contact me, Mark Schubin, at [email protected].  The breakfast roundtables are literally round tables at which participants eat breakfast.  Each table is numbered, and each number corresponds to a topic with a moderator.  The moderator may preach, teach, question, or simply referee fights — anything goes.  The roundtables begin at 7:30 am and last for one hour on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings.  Moderators must cover their tables even if they would rather sit in on others.  Moderators must be registered for the retreat and do not get any discount by virtue of moderating a breakfast roundtable.

ALL topic proposals (having something to do with the industry) will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis until we run out of tables, but the request must come directly from the proposed moderator.  Moderators may change topics and even replace themselves up to the last minute, but once a slot is confirmed, it MUST be covered.  There is no deadline for requesting a roundtable, but, once we run out of tables, there can be no more that day.

For a slot in the main program, please contact me.  Proposals may be as brief or as long as is considered necessary to convey their content to me (e.g., “16K resolution,” “lensless imaging,” “immersive sound,” “Do audiences prefer music or 3D?” “thought-controlled post,” “HD in 100 bits per second,” “correcting lens aberrations in post through blind deconvolution,” “How much sharpness is enough?” “Detecting explosives through multispectral imaging,” “viewfinder considerations for stereoscopic acquistion,” “high-speed data links for interactive post,” “repurposing for cinema, home-theater, TV, and handheld,” etc.).  No formal abstract is required.  If more info is needed, I will ask for it.  Presentations are expected to be about technology, not marketing.

Proposals must be received by me by the end of the day on October 22.  I will acknowledge receipt of all submissions.  If you do not get a receipt from me, I probably did not receive your submission.  Please try again.  If you get a rejection message from this address, you may try <[email protected]>.  Decisions are expected to be made in late November.  Again, submissions must be made by the proposed presenter.  They should include the proposed subject and the desired duration, if not the standard 30 minutes (including set-up and Q&A).  For proposed panels, the proposer is required to provide all of the panelists.  Speakers and panelits DO receive a substantial attendance discount (and may attend their own sessions free of charge).

A note on decisions: Many factors affect acceptance, including novelty, expected quality, geographic and industry diversity, trends suggested by HPA, and trends that emerge in the paper-submission process.  At this time, for example, I expect no submissions on curved screens; if there are 20 submissions on curved screens, however, there might be a curved-screens session, which would reduce the time available for other topics.  Not being accepted, therefore, should not be considered an indication of the perceived quality of the submission.

Please note that the 2011 HPA Tech Retreat is currently expected to have an all-day supersession on workflow on February 15, concurrent with an all-day ATSC seminar.

Some more information about the retreat may be found here: http://www.hpaonline.com/mc/page.do?sitePageId=23995&orgId=hopa

Here’s something I posted on Schubin Cafe in January about the event: http://schubincafe.com/blog/2010/01/someone-will-be-there-who-knows-the-answer/

And here’s a link to a PowerPoint reviewing this year’s HPA Tech Retreat: http://schubincafe.com/blog/2010/03/what-the-big-thinkers-thought-a-review-of-the-2010-hpa-tech-retreat/

Even if you have no plans to present at the retreat, please mark your calendars and check the HPA site to see when registration opens.  The HPA Tech Retreat has sold out in the past.  Don’t be left not attending “the one event you should attend if you attend only one.”