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I look forward to meeting you next year at ShoWest. All the Film-Tech'ers I met this year at ShoWest are real gentlemen and true professionals in our industry. It was, indeed, a real pleasure to be there.

That is where it is at.

This was my first year to ShoWest, and for that matter visiting Las Vegas. I met many people, learned some new things and came up with some new questions.

The people I met were simply too many to keep track of. I've never been too good with remembering faces with names, so thankfully most of the people I met had business cards and now have their pictures on file (for whenever they decide to join in on the forums) for me to help remember them by. Of course all of the regular Film-Tech'ers with pictures were easily spotted. Ian is a very, very large man who could easily pass for a gorilla if only he had more hair and he walked around beating his chest. I actually wanted to get a short video of Ian standing on a Kinoton platter beating his chest, but Larry Shaw had gone home by that last day and the other guys at the Kinoton booth didn't seem to think it was too good of an idea, despite the fact that there was a publicity shot on the platter showing Larry and another man both standing on the top deck. I had met Ian before, he is a great guy and it was good to see him again. Ian's partner (in business that is), Ky was also a pleasure to meet, although I didn't really get much chance to talk with him. Mark was exactly as I had imagined he would be, except for those of you who haven't met him, imagine a low bassy voice with a vast amount of knowledge and a good sense of humor. John Pytlak is indeed a walking encyclopedia of information regarding film. This man knows far too much about film for any one human and can talk for days at a time, yet never get boring to listen to. (I think he must be an alien.) I am convinced Gordon has worked with every piece of equipment ever made for the projection room...and has not forgotten one single thing he has ever come across. Got a question? Ask Gord! And finally we have Steve Guttag, lord of the reels. Steve served as most of the companies representatives, for as I walked the floor with Steve, he didn't even bother getting the manufacturer's input. Steve already knew everything about everyone's equipment and if I didn't know better, would say he was getting paid to play salesman. In fact, I don't even know why the Kinoton reps even bothered to show up with Steve on the floor! However beware, for Steve is very sarcastic (and funny) most of the time. I would've liked to have seen what kind of a conversation he and Joe would've had together. Something tells me it would have been worthy of videotaping.

There were lots and lots of other Film-Tech'ers I got to meet for the first time there, including Aaron Sisemore, Richard Fowler, Ted Costas, Gordon Bachlund, Rick Hamilton, John F. Allen, Bill Purdy, Scott Hicks, The Weenie Man himself...Paul G. Thompson, some guy named Dwayne Caldwell and others to name a few. (We all missed you Bob Maar!) In addition I got to meet a lot of industry people who yet to or have not recently participated here including the infamous Sam Chevez, Steve Krams, the guys from Kinoton, SPECO, Neumade, Lucasfilm THX/TAP, Kelmar, Ultra Stereo, Strong, Big Sky, and on and on and on and on. Everyone was there, even Bevan Wright of Christie. Unfortunately he did not have a Bevan-poo nearby for me to get a picture. I'm sure I am missing tons of people, but this would take me all night if I was to even try and make an attempt to list everyone.

For those of you who were at ShoWest and missed the Film-Tech Drink, shame on you. We all had a great time and everyone in attendance who had 500 posts or more got Film-Tech T-shirts. (See Paul Thompson's picture 2 posts above.) Who knows what we'll do next year. A special thanks goes out to David Bevilacqua and Ron Purtee from Cinema Products International for setting up the entire gathering and co-sponsoring it with me!

I learned a few things while I was there. First and foremost, one block in Vegas is roughly equivalent to 20 normal city blocks! At least that's the way it seemed. You see, last week right before I got on the plane to go to ShoWest I got my foot in a brace to correct a problem I've had for a long time, and walking was not very easy for me. Add to that the fact that the people who make sidewalks in Vegas don't seem to be able to make a FLAT surface to walk on, and the aggravation was multiplied. In fact, all of "Paris" was bricked floor! This was the worst part of the trip.

I also am now convinced that airport security is a friggin' joke. Sure we've got the geeky 18 year old kid sporting a machine gun to make us feel safe, but are they really checking things? Of course not. I walk through the security with a laptop and of course, my metal foot brace and the alarm goes off. No problem. I get scanned with their little hand held metal detector, which of course goes nowhere near my crotch. I guess any terrorist would never think of hiding a weapon there. Then I had to remove my brace for them to inspect it to make sure it isn't some kind of a transforming bomb. Meanwhile the woman is going crazy over my laptop, trying to make sure it won't convert into a nuclear weapon. Dwayne is scanned and as it turns out, he has metal in part of his shoes, which he had to remove. All of this and yet no one there noticed that Dwayne walked right on through with a fairly large carry on bag that was obviously full! Yup, not one single person even bothered to check it. That's comforting. On the way back I carried the bag and Dwayne carried the laptop. Do they check the laptop? Of course not. All these guys are worried about is gunpowder residue on the outside of the carry on bag that I was carrying. They wiped it down with their special Oxy pad and deemed it safe to carry aboard, despite their never even bothering to look inside of it. Then they went ballistic over my left foot when they saw my right foot was in a brace. I had to remove my shoe from my left foot and prove to them I was not carrying a nail file or grenade launcher in there, yet they didn't even bat an eye about my right foot in it's metal brace that was setting off all of their detectors. As if that wasn't enough, upon entering the airplane the computer selected the same woman to do a full search of that had gone through the same search on the plane trip TO Vegas! Yes indeedy, this new security is certainly worth the extra hassle of arriving super early to catch a plane. I feel safer just knowing how efficient those people are.

Getting back to Vegas, also noteworthy of mentioning are those damned slot machines. Not one single place we went to in all of Vegas was without them. Even the airport had slot machines. We didn't go into the McDonald's, but I'm willing to bet that with each Happy Meal came a token for the slot machines in the playground. I still wake up in the morning with the ringing of those bells in my ears. Someone needs to invent a mute button for those things.

Beware of escalators! It took Dwayne and I three days to figure out where this black crap was coming from that was getting all over our hands and finally we found the culprit...the black handrails of the escalators!

Speaking of escalators, not one of them actually had the handrails running at the same speed as the steps. Anyone know why this is? Is it that hard to make them both run at the same speed?

The Episode II preview footage was indeed one of the highlights of the show. As a firm hater of Jar Jar Binks, which honestly ruined Episode I for me, I must admit I am very much looking forward to the second installment due out in 2 months. The preview footage looked very good in content and quality. Even though I still do not find DLP as high of quality as real film, since Episode II was shot digitally, it did project nicely in DLP. I sat about 2 screen-widths back, John Pytlak sat closer and reported jaggies. One of the most impressive sections of the show was a demonstration of how digital footage can be "zoomed in" on in post-production. While sure the quality went down as it was magnified, you would be absolutely amazed at just how well it DID hold up! The scenes we were shown were very much action packed and I actually thought the trailer that was shown afterwards did not do justice to the footage I saw just before. (That trailer is now available for download on www.starwars.com tonight I believe.) My only complaints with the show was that the audio sounded highly compressed, almost like a low sampling rate was used, during the 9 minute random footage from the movie...and Yoda looked very fake in the scenes he was in. I guess that's what happens with cgi characters, and I've never heard a good audio presentation from DLP. (Sean James from Christie reported to us after the show that "the audio was uncompressed"...so something funky is going on with DLP's audio.) Overall though, I expect this movie to do BIG BUSINESS at the box office this summer. It appears that some of the "cheese factor" has been omitted from this film, which I believe will bring people back for more repeat viewings. (Slapstick and Sci-Fi just doesn't mix well IMHO.) Then again, there was not one shot of Jar Jar shown. Still, this movie is going to be the one to be pestering your booker to get this summer.

The last night we were there Aaron and Kat took Dwayne and I out to the Hilton for the "Star Trek Experience" where we ate at a place that was completely Star Trek in every way. Aaron had himself a Romulan Ale and there were many things on the menu to choose from, all with Trekkie names such as "the wrap of Kahn". There were also characters from the movies and tv shows hanging around. At one point Aaron got a visit from an angry Klingon over something I can no longer remember. (I was laughing too much from it.) The Klingon didn't take to my flip cell phone too nicely either, for he thought it was a communicator. Lots of fun indeed! Make sure the next time you travel to Vegas to check this place out!

The last day we were in Vegas we took the monorail to the MGM Grand to see the kitties in the "Lion Habitat". We only got to watch for 20 minutes or so before having to head back for our airport shuttle, but I definitely want one of those "big kitties" as a pet.

I took over 200 pictures and will be posting them in the very near future. Fortunately Joe is taking care of most of the resizing work for me to speed up the conversion process to the web. Look for them soon.

Hmmmmm, maybe I did write a thousand words. I'll leave that to Evans to figure out. Anyway Ian, you happy?

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and of course we should mention Elizabeth.

But I think you have just upset Claudia and Steve.

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Dave, isn't it common knowledge that most everywhere projectionists are thought of by the bean counters as monkeys working for peanuts? (at least that's the impression I get from especially the larger chains)
and those in management positions are looked at as more responsible, and get paid more than projectionists... heck, when most projectionists are paid near minimum wage, most _any_ job pays quite a bit more money.