Today my friend and I ventured to Santa Monica, CA for an Expo ... Cine Gear 2006. This is an annual event where all the equipment and guilds of Motion Picture go and show off their new toys and inventions. Gosh have I missed filmmaking, I mean crewing on producitons, shooting my own stuff, actually using my light meter and shooting on film. This was such an amazing time for me. My friend loves this stuff and is studying cinematography. It's great to bounce techniques and technical aspects off him. For him it was wonderful becuase he met his hero, the DP on Requiem for a Dream. He got his picture, they shared some words, and he couldn't stop smiling the rest of the time.

For me the smiles started as I noticed my babies ... everywhere!!! I used to do a lot of dolly grip work on occasion teaching a class in it. So to see all the cameras on displays being mounted on J.L. Fisher dollies, I couldn't control myself. I grabbed a dolly, tried to push it, but the wheels were locked, and the people were eyeing me. If I could I would have thrown the smaller Fisher 11 on my shoulders and run for the hills. When we stopped at the fisher booth, I was in heaven. Even recognized a guy who used to work in the back of the loading dock. Looks like he has moved up in the company. It's funny I remember those guys busting their asses in the valley heat, so when I would pick up or drop off the dollies I would make sure to hook those guys up with big bottles of Gatorade. This particular guy was always very accomidating.

We wondered around and picked up a lot free stuff. Saw a lot of cool stuff, and sat in on amazing seminar by Arri. They covered only their cameras and god it was terrific to see, watch, and learn. I had this huge smile on my face as they discussed this redicilous diaptor and it's functions. They talked about an Arri-SR, the camera I used for my portfolio film. They showed us a new wide angle D8 lens WITHOUT ANY distortion. OH MY GOD! The foootage they showed us was phenomenal. It's as wide as a fisheye without any distortion, freakin crazy! The technical talk of millimeters, t-stops, lens, got my pants wet. Well, not actually but did remind me of the fun and gun of Indy filmmaking. As my friend said, "you are knocking the rust off." I was and it was pretty cool.

We got loads of free stuff, including DVDs, catalogs, hats, clamps and had to play miniature golf to get free Panavision shirts! I beat my friend by 3 strokes! Dang, I forgot to mention this Red Camera we saw. A new camera that shoots up to 4000 frames per second on digital. Amazing!

I was so psyched to go and shoot my own stuff now. We wound up at the 8mm booth and both agreed it was time to shoot something in either Super-8 or 16mm. I wanna shoot, I wanna shoot. On the way out we took this funny cutout picture that should be online later this week. Once I download it from Creativehandbook's website, it will go up here! I had a great time reminscing, learning, and getting excited. I know one person that would have loved to be here and see this. Maybe next time. A great day none the less.

Check out the pictures, pictures, pictures!