Image Mechanics Expo - Collision Conference

A funny thing happened on the way to the Coliseum LA Film School.  This conference started as a simple event to announce the Image Mechanics Redrock Micro kit and get all of our clients up to speed on hybrid shooting.  While putting together the presentation, the small ripples we saw coming in the photography world turned into waves of disruptive change for photographers and filmmakers alike.

Esquire and W Magazine have both used the RED ONE™ for feature stories, and the door has opened for photographers to deliver not only stills, but multimedia content as well.  Photographer Vincent Laforet shot a short film using the Canon 5D Mark II that swept the internet, and Redrock Micro released kits that add cinema functionality to these hybrid DSLR cameras.  Photography and Cinematography started colliding as the tools and technologies overlapped enough to cause industry watchers like Lou Lesko to ring the alarm bell at Digital Photo Pro Magazine.

At Image Mechanics, we saw the potential of the RED ONE™ camera and have been closely watching the hybrid photography trend develop.  Bringing the cost and complexity of a 35mm motion picture camera onto still jobs with already stressed budgets has been our biggest concern.  Advertising budgets are shrinking and I don't see magazines being able to pay $4000 per day when they can't even afford the real costs associated with traditional digital capture.  Don't get me wrong, there is a place in photography for the RED cameras, but it will probably take clients combining Commercial TV/Film campaigns with the stills jobs to make it work, and as Lou says in his article, "....DPs already are buzzing about moving in on our territory because work in their genre is diminishing with the current lousy economy. It will be a turf war about who’s more qualified to shoot the new technology".

In trying to address the cost and complexity issues, we developed an approach using the Canon 5D Mark II to deliver video and stills. Redrock Micro filled in the hardware holes by adapting their cinema kit to accommodate the unique requirements of VCS (Video Capture for Stills) .  A 5DMkII  mounted on a Redrock Micro kit becomes a practical and affordable solution for photographers and filmmakers wanting to create content for both print and multimedia.

Like any new discipline, there are some limitations and work-arounds but now is the time to be in front of the next wave of professional photography.  The transition from film to digital seemed fast and caught a lot of talented photographers off guard.  I expect clients to drive this next trend even faster as print media declines and multimedia is needed to feed broadband enabled websites and new outlets like mobile phones and digital signage.

VCS requires a whole new set of skills and knowledge so with some guidance from Brian Valente at Redrock Micro, we started planting the seeds for a larger event that would help jump start photographers and filmmakers into this transition.  It has evolved into a two day event we named the Collision Conference.  Each day of the conference will feature a keynote presentation followed by timely and informative seminars in the main theater covering VCS, Living Posters, Digital Signage, Moving Catalogs, Cinema Style DSLR Filmmaking and Music Video production. Leading manufacturers and retailers will be exhibiting and hosting demonstrations on the concourse floor. Saturday, August 29th will focus on Video Capture for Stills, while Sunday, August 30th will shift focus to DSLR Filmmaking, including a DSLR Film Festival.

As a speaker, I will share the insights and techniques we developed for VCS.  I will be joined by great speakers like Alexx Henry who shoots "Living Movie Posters" and Lou Lesko a freelance photographer and writer who penned "Will Video Kill the Photography Star".  More speakers will be added in the weeks to come.  The Image Mechanics team will also be on hand for a live VCS shooting demo in the concourse area from 12:00-4:00PM on Saturday the 29th.

Conference passes are available immediately from the registration page for $200 per day or $350 for a two-day pass.

Drawings will be held for attendees with full tract passes on both days. Prizes include a Redrock Micro DSLR kit given away each day.

The conference is limited to 300 attendees per day, so like we say in the Collision Conference tag line.....Don't be Roadkill.