I’m about to go to LA for CineGear. This show has grown and grown and for me is now the most important cinematography event of the year for gear freaks.
Cameraimage is better for the pure worship of cinematography, CineGear is heaven for gear freaks but it has a problem, it’s effectively only 1.5 days long and this is no longer enough.
Years ago we all went to NAB and IBC and that was pretty much it, maybe Photokina for those of us from a stills background.
Then Expo started in LA and then Munich and it was growing and more interesting in a lot of ways than NAB but a small side event called CineGear started up and killed off Expo in LA and Expo in Munich morphed into something else.
The problem, apart from it being too short, with CineGear is its location. Paramount studios street sets, brilliant but not big enough. Not a problem when the adjacent stages are available but this year the stages are miles away, you can’t just pop from manufacturer to manufacturer.
I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here, it is after all my rant area 🙂
I think that maybe CineGear is in danger from its success. It’s problem is that it needs to be all in the same area. Unlike NAB and IBC there aren’t areas that you want to avoid or at most pay a fleeting visit to, it’s all interesting. I know at NAB I want to go to the Central hall with a short visit to the lower South hall. At IBC it’s halls 10 & 11 with a short trip to 7. I can concentrate my energies.
CineGear just needs to be longer, it’s too easy to get into conversations with people and miss kit you wanted to see. We need more time there.