quote: Bruce Clouthier

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I suppose I am fishing for opportunities to socialize with techs and less with the top brass.

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quote:

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The days of being able to party late into the evening and then being able to function first thing the following morning are long behind me!

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quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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Caesars is just way way too big.

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Last year I stayed in Bally's, but the show was in Caesar's. Even though they are across the street from each other, according to my Fitbit, the walk from my hotel room to the MiT booth was .98 miles! That is just along corridors, bridges, and up and down stairs and escalators. I was literally walking two miles a day (four if I had to go back to my room in the middle of the day for any reason) to and from my hotel room.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-17-2019, 05:17 PM:
 
I try to stay on east-coast time so I'm up early and deal with east-cost issues before things get going at the show. However, by 10pm Vegas time...I'm starting to fade fast. So it is often dinner and then BED.

I used to stay at the Barbary Coast (Bill & Ted's Gamblin' Hall) until it got bought/renovated into its current high-price thing). Now, I tend to stay at Bally's or Harrahs. Bally's is a better stay but Harrahs is often cheaper and one has a street level crossing right to the driveway to the Colosseum. It is also reasonably close to the CVS store if one needs some provisions.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 02-18-2019, 05:36 AM:
 
I used to live in Vegas. So now, when I go back there for Cinemacon, I have friends that I go out to dinner with - that are actual residents there.

Of course Cinemacon is like one big family reunion anyways...
 

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Posted by Bruce Cloutier (Member # 9615) on 02-18-2019, 01:40 PM:
 
I get it that none of us are party animals (anymore). I'm just not ready to submit to being exclusively diurnal and increasingly anti-social.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-18-2019, 05:10 PM:
 
It's amazing how conventions have changed since I got into the biz (1979). Used to be, most of the best conversations were held in the hotel bar, and nobody ever went back to their room before midnight. I remember one film company rep in particular ("Lyle from New Line") who would set up shop in the bar immediately upon arrival, and he only came out for his product reel presentation and the trade show.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-19-2019, 04:18 PM:
 
I've heard CinemaCon 2020 will be held at the Life Care Center of Las Vegas.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-20-2019, 09:44 AM:
 
I will be there working on the show in the Coliseum. I hope to make it the show floor at least once. Hopefully I will run into some of you guys!
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-22-2019, 09:48 PM:
 

quote: Marcel Birgelen

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I've heard CinemaCon 2020 will be held at the Life Care Center of Las Vegas

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If they put Atmos in the assisted living units I might be up for it...
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-30-2019, 08:48 PM:
 
Thought Brad might like to know that the stuff for his booth made it to Cinemacon safe and sound:



We made good progress unpacking and setting up today:


 

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Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 04-01-2019, 11:22 AM:
 
I'm sure I'll run into a few of you on the tradeshow floor this year too. I like to work and play in the timezone I'm. It's a habit I've picked up from visiting family abroad. If time allows, it'd be great to chill with a pint or three.
 

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Posted by Bruce Cloutier (Member # 9615) on 04-01-2019, 06:50 PM:
 
Well, I've got my eye on that Texas Chili booth tucked away in the back corner here. Usually we have to run to the other floor for such things.

INTEG's booth is just to the right of the Dolby sign you see over the MiT in Leo's photo. We're just behind Dolby's big black box.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-06-2019, 11:56 PM:
 
I'm pretty relieved that we weren't on the other floor. I did do a quick tour of it during a quiet half hour: the overpowering smell of sweet soda and hot dogs in combination was such that if I'd had to spend any longer there, the result would likely have been a carpet cleaning bill...

Sorry I missed you. I kept meaning to pop over to the Integ booth, but either we were slammed with footfall or co-workers were on breaks and I couldn't get away.

Brad won second prize for the fastest teardown: the winner was the Wuhu Star Huge Screen Co. Ltd. They were gone by the time the trade show closed, and were probably halfway back over the Pacific by the time we shrink-wrapped up our last pallet.

It was good to meet some of you, and apologies to those I missed.
 

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Posted by Bruce Cloutier (Member # 9615) on 04-07-2019, 07:24 AM:
 
Yeah, keeping most of the food and snacks in a separate area is a good thing.

We were happy with the traffic at this show. I was busier that usual and also didn't have a lot of time to socialize away from the booth. I was happy to see those of you that stopped by. I am generally terrible at name recognition though, and feel that I need to apologize for my deer-in-the-headlights look that you may have encountered.

This year was quieter than last year. No body was blasting tunes. I wondered if last year's exhibitors were warned against it. We could hear the Bohemian Rhapsody coming from the MIT booth but only barely. It is a really recognizable sound track and easily picked out of the background. You should mix it up though. The repetition ruins it for the rest of us.

In all of the years that we have been in this market and done this show (East and West) none of us have yet to see a single celebrity on on the show floor or in the convention center, really anywhere. Obviously if you are an attendee and attend the presentations you have that opportunity. We could always pay for a show. But it seems like our industry that supports the cinemas that make the market for the movies is ignored by the professionals in the movie industry itself. Just something that came to mind. How does Dennis Miller put it? It's just my opinion... I may be wrong.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-08-2019, 08:28 AM:
 
It was great seeing everyone there this year!

The technology aspect of our industry is probably the most interesting and intriguing.

Glad to be a part of this industry,
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-08-2019, 09:03 AM:
 

quote: Bruce Cloutier

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In all of the years that we have been in this market and done this show (East and West) none of us have yet to see a single celebrity on on the show floor or in the convention center, really anywhere. Obviously if you are an attendee and attend the presentations you have that opportunity. We could always pay for a show. But it seems like our industry that supports the cinemas that make the market for the movies is ignored by the professionals in the movie industry itself.

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quote: Bruce Cloutier

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In all of the years that we have been in this market and done this show (East and West) none of us have yet to see a single celebrity on on the show floor or in the convention center, really anywhere.

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We were at the first CinemaCon in 2011. After the final night awards show, some of the celebs walked with the crowd through the casino to the after-party which was held in the main pool area. We walked with Helen Mirren most of the way to the party, and also ran into Russell Brand during the party. There may have been others that we didn't notice. We've been to the convention twice since then and haven't gotten that close to any of the celebs.

I agree, I wish some of them would mingle a bit, they might find out we're actually some interesting people. But with security concerns the way they are anymore, maybe they (or their insurance companies) don't want to risk it.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-08-2019, 06:44 PM:
 
If you guys wanted celebrities and studio people you should have come over to the collesium. The Rock, Arnold, John Cena, Seth Rogen, to name a few.

Did anyone here check out any of the studio presentations or the NATO presentation?
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-09-2019, 05:20 AM:
 
I typically have too many meetings set up to have time to go to the Studio presentations or the NATO stuff.

But every Cinemacon trip I always run into celebrities randomly. This trip was David Harbour (the new Hellboy). He had a private party at the Montecristo Cigar Bar. I also saw Jimmy Kimmel and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Years past it's been John Cena and Nicholas Cage.

They sometimes work really hard to disguise themselves though.

I don't typically approach them as I know they want to be left alone.
 

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-09-2019, 09:34 AM:
 
Celebrities spend years jumping up and down saying "Hey, look at me!". Then when everyone is looking, "Go away, I want my privacy."
 

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Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 04-09-2019, 06:38 PM:
 
So true Frank.

Ya I was wondering too if anyone had any testimony over what they viewed or what they had got to demo? Or any new projector or pj tech revealed this year?
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-09-2019, 09:15 PM:
 
SOME actors are that way. Many, if not most actors, are introverts. When they act, they are just that, acting.

Having worked with/around numerous "stars" or famous people, I can assure you, their personalities are all over the place just like regular people. Like Dennis, I've never inserted myself into their lives. They were there to do a job (promote the movie), not to make a new pal...or they happened to be in town and decided to watch a movie at the theatre I was working (working at the K-B Cinema or the Uptown tended to get more than their fair share of "famous" people attending a show (if they were acting at one of the local live theatres like the Kennedy Center they might see a movie on their day off).

A bigger shocker to people not used to being around movie stars...how they are filmed versus their actual size. Some stars are TINY in real life (Sly Stallone, for instance...he was semi-local back in the 80s and could often be seen in the Georgetown area of DC).
 

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Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 04-09-2019, 11:01 PM:
 
Back in the 1970's and 80's, I was a recording engineer and the studio I worked for got in the business of producing our own radio shows for syndication. Those were mainly talk shows and we had many guests from the field of entertainment including many A-list celebs.

We never sent limos. The guests either walked to the studio or took a cab. Most came alone. A few came with a single assistant or promotion person. The only exception wasn't a Hollywood person - it was author Issac Asimov who would show up with a team of recent female college grads who would take over the office. But other than that, there were no demands, no special requests. No one ever came with a posse or security. Everyone was exceptionally nice.

The only people who ever demonstrated egos were people who weren't stars yet.

One very famous film director wouldn't come to the studio and we had to go to his hotel. And one fairly famous singer wouldn't come and we did the interview at the record label.

But of course, it's decades later and times have changed. They started to change after John Lennon was murdered in 1980. Since then, paychecks have gotten bigger, egos have gotten bigger and people and their management make demands simply because they can, etc.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-10-2019, 07:25 AM:
 
To add to Martin's comments. Yes, those that tended to have the bigger possies and feeling of inflated egos were not necessarily the A-listers...and if a politician (a common hazard of working in the DC area), then you got entaroges and demands. Note, the lower the politician, the higher the demands.

Al Gore used to see movies at the Uptown on the days I worked back when he was VP. You'd never know he or his secret service were ever there. They were all plain clothes and did their dardest to NOT call attention. But god forbid the Mayor of DC was coming to a show You'd think the second coming was happening or something.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-10-2019, 12:08 PM:
 
Regarding "celebrities": the most pretentious thing that I've ever seen was a screening of a half-hour cable access show (yes, cable access show) at a movie theatre (in the largest screen of a six-plex). The guy who made it had (to my knowledge) never made anything before or since, but he showed up in a limo and wearing a tux for the screening. All of his friends and family (and pretty much no one else) were there.

The actual show was on a DVD. It was a piece about a local museum that was competently made, but no better than the output from your average high school "television production" class. There was certainly nothing "cinematic" about it that demanded the "big screen experience."

I guess that he was happy with the screening, but it seemed pretty over-the-top, given the circumstances.

Even the A-list people don't normally show up in limos around here. They might spring for a Town Car, but nothing fancier.

Edit: I can think of one time that a limo was used. The subject of the documentary "Man on Wire" (the man who walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers) convinced a film festival to pay for him to take a limo from NYC to Newport, RI. Apparently, he was afraid of flying. (And maybe trains.)
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-10-2019, 05:24 PM:
 

quote: Steve Guttag

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A bigger shocker to people not used to being around movie stars...how they are filmed versus their actual size. Some stars are TINY in real life (Sly Stallone, for instance...he was semi-local back in the 80s and could often be seen in the Georgetown area of DC).

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quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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I can't think of any other actor shorter than he except McCauley Calkin.

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Humphrey Bogart was also 5'7", a fact that was also masked by clever camera angles and studio bosses' desperate attempts to prevent photos of him and Lauren Bacall (5'9") next to each other from being published. There were also several ironic references to Bogart's height in his movies, such as when he first encounters the Bacall character's nymphomaniac sister in The Big Sleep. Her first words to him are, "You're not very tall, are you?"
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-11-2019, 04:54 PM:
 
I saw Spike Lee once in person the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan. A quick web search would show him to be 5' 6". He didn't look even that tall to me.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-11-2019, 05:17 PM:
 
Maybe smaller actors are cheaper to work with, because the sets can be smaller?
 

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Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 04-11-2019, 08:56 PM:
 
Ive been around and met many famous musicians and they mostly all seemed short too. Slash of Guns and Roses seemed tiny. So did James Hetfield, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, to name a few seemed little.
 

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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-11-2019, 10:11 PM:
 

quote: Marcel Birgelen

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Maybe smaller actors are cheaper to work with, because the sets can be smaller?

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