Boston Macworld (July 12-15, 2004) has been called many a name, from dismal to awesome, but the purpose of this article is to give you an idea of some of the highlights of the show. If I were to give you an article about the negatives of Macworld, you would probably stop reading it at the end of this sentence. Thankfully, I’m not going to, so keep reading.

For the filmmaking/Mac community this show was a disappointment. This was not because of the absence of Apple Computer Inc., but because the number of exhibitors selling products to this group was tiny. A much larger number of exhibits were directed at Mac audio enthusiasts. The absence of Apple was notable and seemed to discourage some of the bigger film-related exhibitions, however, there were a few saving graces. There were many Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro panels and courses. Of course, on a casual examination many attendees had Exhibit Hall passes only (the author included). This is easily understandable considering the price of an all-access pass ($1,195) compared to an Exhibit Hall pass ($20), (if registered in advance). So even if one only had an Exhibit Hall pass there were some treasures: Hash was demonstrating Animation Master 10.5 and I hear that they will release v.11 soon. Animation Master is a feature-packed package that includes rendering unlike Alias Maya (another widely used Mac-compatible animation program).

Although, not of that much use to most filmmakers, DigiDesign introduced the D-control mixer ($90,000), along with the M-box controller that is capable of 192 audio tracks using ProTools running on a PowerMac G4. This includes an additional 1TB of storage. On the portable video editing side, Tech Superpowers Inc. introduced an editing system with a tagline that read “A Whole New Meaning to Editing on The Fly”. I admit when I first saw this I thought, “Oh, great another real-time enhancement for Final Cut Pro.” The system turned out to be a dual processor 2GHZ G5, a 1.75 TB Xserve RAID, an AJA Io External Capture Card, Final Cut Pro HD (v. 4.5), two Samsung 19” LCD monitors, a LaCie 1TB Big Disk Extreme, and a 42” plasma screen. All this fabulous equipment installed in a car (a Lexus)! The fact that this whole system is able to fit inside a working car (the steering wheel and driver’s side controls are intact) amazed me. When I visited the Tech Superpowers booth I was informed that there was a contest in which contestants could shoot footage of Macworld, and then edit it using this dream system. I was sold, although I hadn’t brought a camera with me. We, (I attended with my mom, who so graciously was willing to go home and back out again in the terrible weather), we rushed home to get the camera and make it back before the exhibits closed. We got back in time to shoot about 5 minutes of footage of the Exhibit Hall and the different floors of the Boston Convention Center, which, by the way is gorgeous and very well designed. Eventually, at 5:00 pm, I started editing on this system, which besides a minor capture problem, worked flawlessly. Editing with the system isn’t for the faint of heart, because whatever is edited is seen by the public on a 42” plasma screen mounted on the trunk. I had the good luck to be informed by the convention center event manager that he would like to have a copy of the edited footage I had shot for the contest. I ended up staying a little bit after hours, thanks to the car’s owner, (who also came up with the idea for the car/editor), Michael Oh. It was a great experience, because not only was the system amazing, it was more comfortable than my workspace at home. I must now mention that the contest grand prize was a LaCie 250GB hard drive (something many, myself included, are always looking for but can’t afford). The piece I produced was called “MACWORLD: THE CONVENTION CENTER” and was 48 seconds long. I won’t know if I’ve won until Macworld ends, but in the end I really did this for the experience and so that all of you reading this will know that while this Macworld might have been small, it’s really true that an attendee could have had some really unique experiences.

Note: Monday, July 19. I checked the Tech Superpowers website and found specs on the car and all of the short films from the contest (including
the winners). I was awarded an Honorable Mention. The entries and info about the car are at www.techsuperpowers.com/pages/geekmyride5.html.