Skipress - Index

Skipress - TWSSF Special Edition 2008 - Index

MEDIA SHOOTOUTSFILMMAKER
RESISTANCE
IS FUTILE, DUDE
Screens can be seen.
Lower your shields and
surrender your ships.
Voices can be HEARD!
38 THE TWSSF ISSUE 2008
Photo: David McColm
Photo: David McColm
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, THE BORG HAS COME. MAX TALKS WITH
ONE-OF-TWELVE ABOUT THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO
PHOTOS AND FILMS. — BY G.D. MAXWELL
Eleven years ago, when Eric Berger and Jack
Turner took the stage for the fi rst Pro Photographers’
Showdown, there was an enthusiastic crowd, a
screen at the front of the room,
reasonably good sightlines and
astonishing photos. Half a decade
later, there were two screens at the
front of a massive conference room,
and if you didn’t arrive a good hour
before it started, you needed binocs
to see what was going on.
Same story with the wildly successful
72-Hour Filmmaker Showdown.
“I can’t see,” was the predominate soundtrack.
Four years ago, walking into the Telus Conference
Centre, everything changed. You could feel
it before you could hear it, and you could hear
it before you could see it. But when you fi nally
saw it, it stopped you dead in your tracks. You
stared at it — and it stared right back at you…
no matter where you stood. Or sat.
The centre of the massive room was fi lled with
a hexagonal superstructure, 5.5 metres high and
6.7 metres point-to-point. Six elevated screens,
each 2.3 metres tall and three metres wide faced
SHOWDOWN
April 15-16
PROPHOTO
SHOWDOWN:
April 17
seats radiating to the far corners of the room.
The corners themselves each contained another
screen. Thirty-six speakers fi lled the room with
enough sound to disintegrate skiers’ bone spurs.
Scores of lights pulsated with the music.
The Borg had arrived.
Resistance is futile. Lower your shields and surrender
your ships. Get down; watch the show.
The Borg is the brainchild of One-of-Twelve,
a.k.a. Scott McPhee, general manager and
technical guru at Rocky Mountain Production
Systems. “I was getting tired of doing the sameold
same-old. This was something I thought
would shake things up a bit.”
After 12 guys spent three days constructing the
giant Meccano set, stringing a couple of miles of
A/V cable, tapping into enough power to run a
restaurant and fine-tuning 10 screens and
projectors, there wasn’t a bad seat in the joint.
Perfect sightlines for everybody.
For this year’s photo, fi lm, DJ and fashion shows,
Son of Borg features a new sound-forward sound
system to provide much-needed clarity for the
fi lms, which often feature less than state- of-theart
recording quality.
Resistance? You must be joking.
Photo: Courtesy of TWSSF