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CinequipWhite Winter Freeze
On February 12 2009, CinequipWhite hosted their annual Winter Freeze tradeshow at the new
Filmport Studios at Toronto's lake front. The entire day was
devoted to sharing slick cinematography hardware, some of the latest technology in the industry and an invite to view the 46,000 square foot
Studio 4. The sign on the stairs to the catwalk said "climb at your own risk", so I only went halfway, and yes the folks below where becoming
miniature by the minute - that was high enough for me, folks.
We enjoyed demonstrations of massive cranes remotely extending up to thirty feet overhead, a 3D presentation by
Creative Post,
SRO and Dimension 3 that included footage from a Rush concert. I sampled the Sonar-V Studio by Cakewalk Sonar, a post
production suite with both audio and video formats, that's compatible with most video editing programs. The CEDAR DNS3000
noise reduction gear was a fun tool to play with, designed for live and recorded broadcasts. This amazing machine has the ability to
block out any background noise from the audio output. It was astounding to experience the hub of the crowd completely vanish from the headset. Yes, this is
one of those fancy toys used by commentators and hosts at live concerts and sports events. The Cedar DNS1000 received an Academy Award in 2005,
so you can imagine what the 3000 can do at its best.
Four Seasons Aviation owns six of these slick helicopters, fully equiped with camera gear inside and out.
It was pretty cool sitting in it and controlling the camera from inside. The outside camera hangs about 4 feet below the tip of the aircraft and is controlled by a remote from
inside the craft.
Michael St. Eve at Airstar Balloons was all too happy to indulge me in the fun of their brilliant helium filled balloon lights, a safe and energy efficient method of lighting events and movie sets, that is far
too overlooked in the current film industry. Airstar also enjoys boasting rights for lighting the grounds at President Obama's Inauguration. This stately tungsten model hovers above us in the studio as naturally as if it were
at home. Jason gets a shot at trying out the SteadyCam, a little difficult controlling the arm if your left handed, though.
It only happens once a year, so if you're counting on seeing the latest cinematography gear first hand, you better mark your calender for next February for the Winter Freeze
or remember to visit CinequipWhite Inc. to catch the action !
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