Indie 2.0

I attended Filmart for part of Tuesday and Wednesday (yesterday), just down the road in the Hong Kong Convention Centre. Filmart is a pan-Asian film and TV market. This was the first film market I’ve been to, so I found it fascinating.

I saw:

• Production companies from around Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.) and around the world (e.g., France, Germany, Russia). The bulk of activity seemed to be folks either trying to sell Asian movies abroad, or to get Asians to buy European movies.
• Governmental film promotion bodies and councils (Hong Kong and Japan were prominent, with all sorts of free and useful directories and info on shooting in those two places–in English; also one from Bahamas!)
• Lots of film studios and locations advertising their facilities (especially in China)
• Lots of post-production and animation companies from around Asia
• Promotions for the new McDull movie from Bliss Productions, coming out soon, starting McDull in China (McMug and McDull are animated pigs who wander around a beautifully drawn and animated Hong Kong; a very deep and philosophical cartoon, actually, and one of the best for giving you a real feeling for Hong Kong)
• Only a few equipment & camera companies (e.g., Arri)
• Stewart Chong from Wow Digitainment had his Red One camera on display (one of the first in Asia, a reservation number in the 600′s I believe). Steward didn’t have any demo footage, but the camera was all set up with a nice tripod and monitor and folks could try it out. Stewart is doing color correction in a Swiss-made alternative to Assimilate’s Scratch (unfortunately I didn’t write the name of the company down). Stewart, who is normal, charming and with a good command of English in person, mentioned he had been banned from reduser.net–for “being too crazy” (which, indeed, he was…).
• I attended Percy Fung and Digital Magic‘s screening and presentation on Tuesday. Percy put on a good show–projecting clips his company, Digital Magic, had done post- work on–projected on a Sony 4K projector. Looked great. Lots of different material, from DV, to HDV, to 2K to 35mm and 16mm film (scanned and with post done in a DI). Percy is a real pioneer and educator on digital cinema, and spoke of his dream to turn Hong Kong into a digital cinema hub. Great idea!
• I attended Salon Film‘s event and screening on Wednesday, also pitching digital cinema, especially the Panavision Genesis and Salon’s expertise with it. There was very nice demo reels from both Panavision and Salon. Very slick and stunning on the 4K projector. At Filmart is the first time I’ve seen well-done digital cinema on a very large (60 foot?) screen: zero scratches hairs and stuttering–which actually transforms the movie experience, pulling you in, with less reminders that this is a beam of light being projected over your head with images moving 24 times a second…
• At the Salon event, famous Hong Kong cinematographer Raymond Lam (H.K.S.C. and Steadycam expert user) spoke and showed a demo reel (and short shot with it) on revolutionary “Handsfree Transporter”, a cool modded Segway fixed with Steadycam rig. Very very cool. Goes smoothly even on outdoor paths, meaning you don’t have to lay track for dollies, meaning relatively fast set-up and break down (and, perhaps, easier to get permits and permissions).
• The highlight of the Salon event was a talk by Peter Pau (HKSC, ASC and Oscar-winning cinematographer on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) on his experience using a Panavision Genesis to shoot the new Hollywood blockbuster he was cinematographer for, The Forbidden Kingdom. Unfortunately the talk was only given in Cantonese, with no translation–which meant that about 20% of the room (including most Chinese from outside Hong Kong, and 99% of all non-Chinese visiting guests) didn’t understand anything of what seemed to be a master class in digital cinematography, with actual stills from the movie. I left before the the clips from the movie were shown, as it was quite frustrating. The movie itself looks like it will be pretty predictable and uninteresting to me, but with stunning cinematography in amazing locations. From my limited Cantonese and the English on the slides, Pau is a big fan of the Genesis. And the Genesis marketing material seems to be implicitely criticizing Red (saying RGB is better than Bayer pattern; the system is proven and works; no compression; does not use unreliable hard disks, etc.)

Here’s a preview of The Forbidden Kingdom: