Posts from — January 2008

 We had a meeting with CBS yesterday in Burbank. Erik and I took one of our RED camera’s down there to give some of the bigwigs a demo. It was a pretty cool experience! The demo went great and we got to tour a few sets and meet some really cool people. The demo was held in the Tyra Banks Show studio . . . or what used to be the Tyra Banks Studio – she apparently decided it would be cooler to do the show in New York and had it relocated. We got tours of the Price is Right and even cooler, The Young and the Restless =) I’m not a big soap guy but those sets are crazy! Here’s a shot – it’s tough to see but just look at all the lights! 

There were probably 25 different sets, most of which are taken down at the end of each day – crazy!  Most of the stage hands work 14 hour days.  If the set is going to be used in an episode in the next days shoot then they’ll leave it up but more often than not, they all come down.  Everyone was really friendly, even if I didn’t have a clue of who they were . . . Anyhow, the day started early with a 7am flight to Burbank.  The airport was pretty dead so we made it through to our gates pretty quickly.

Here is a shot of me barely awake at the airport. The flight wasn’t bad, only about 45minutes of actual air time before touching down in Burbank. They, of course, screwed up our rental car so we wasted about 50 minutes while they scrambled to find us a car. They finally did and we were off to the studio for our 10am meeting. When we arrived we navigated our way through the line of picketing writers . . . annoying but I do see their point, and headed into the studio.

As I mentioned above, the demo went great and we got to meet some of the top dogs over there. They liked it so much they invited us back at the end of Feb to do it again for some more execs. We’re grateful for the opportunity and want to give a HUGE thank you to Rene Llarenas who arranged the meeting for us. 

I’m stoked about next months meeting – the guys from American Idol are seriously interested in using RED for some of their outdoor stuff. I’ll post when it happens but LOST is on now so I’m out.

TB

So I didn’t post this as quickly as I had planned to . . . I have a feeling this wont get updated very often.  So we went to Macworld and had a great time.  With the exception of registration at the beginning we had a great time.  Check this out . . .

That’s only a small section of the crowd believe it or not.  They only had 4 people working the check in counter . . . what a joke!  Anyways, watching the keynote was really cool and as predicted Apple released the new MacBook Air.  If you think it looks cool in the ads you should see it in person – here are a few shots of it next to my buddies cell phone. . . 

It’s crazy small and looks great . . . but . . . it does seem to be a little light on features as well.  It lacks firewire, ethernet and an optical drive.   Even so, it’s pretty cool.  Full review HERE.  Apple also released a new update for for the iPhone, Apple TV and a movie rental service through iTunes.  All cool stuff!

The next night we had a booth at the Final Cut Pro User’s Group Supermeet.  We had a great time and got a lot of interest in the RED camera.  It was a great trip.

TB

It’s that time of year again when Apple Ner . . . I mean Fans gather together to see what will be this years “must have” from one of the most innovative companies on the planet.  It will be difficult to top last years Macworld which saw the birth of the iPhone but the rumor mill has been a buzz with a couple products in particular that might just do it.  A flash-based subnotbook that carries Wimax (a wireless hotspot that can reach 30 miles in diameter giving you access anywhere in a city) and something called “Inductive Charging” which means it would not need a physical contact but only be in close proximity to the charging source – essentially wireless charging.  Sounds pretty cool but could be way off.  We’ll find out tomorrow.

TB

Here a few shots of my backyard I took with my iPhone.  It’s tough to see, but that mass of metal and canvass at the back used to be my Gazebo.  You can actually see where the wind sheared the metal bars in half!

TB

Yesterday was the first day in a series of storms that are supposed to sweep through the Sacramento Valley over the next week.  Not only did we get a lot of rain (over 4 inches in 24 hours in some areas!) but man was it windy!  Over 80mph gusts!  As you can imagine it caused a few problems with power and debris.  This has been great for the Mountains though.  They’re saying that when all is said and done this could leave upwards of 10 feet of new snow in upper elevations!  This would be great considering the lack of snow we’ve had over the last few years.  My cousin and I have a trip planned in February for Utah.  Going to hit Snowbird and possibly a few other locations so lets hope this storm makes it’s way to Utah too! 

TB