By Karl Paulsen 

A “who’s who” of media tech gathered to discuss new advances and network with colleagues.

Palm Springs welcomed back some 1,200+ industry influencers for the annual Hollywood Professional Association (“HPA”) Tech Retreat, with a “who’s who” of M&E tech professionals gathering in person to discuss new advances and  networking with colleagues on the future of media and entertainment.

In strict compliance with governmental guidelines and with proper COVID protocols in place, HPA’s TR 2022 resumed its intensive program Feb 21st with three sessions that centered on current and evolving production technologies.

Often considered “the premium conference” for M&E, HPA’s Tech Retreat had been “physically dormant” since its last gathering in February 2020. Returning to Palm Springs’ Westin Mission Hills resort, topics of interest included Extended Reality (XR), Volume production experiences, AI/ML, optimization of virtual production (VP) techniques, and emerging workflows for broadcast and cinematic motion picture and live production.

Accompanying the conference was HPA’s “Innovation Zone” where equipment representatives and services providers demonstrated technologies associated with the topics presented throughout the conference.

TR Extra
Open the conference was HPA’s Tech Retreat eXtra (“TR-X”), a half-day session titled “Blending Cine Cameras in Today’s Multi-Camera Live Production Environment.” TR-X focused on the “harmonization” of both broadcast and cinematic workflows centering on multicamera technologies described as the “meshing of cinema and broadcast,” according to the NAB Cine Consortium’s chair, Kristin Petrovich.

On-set production sound challenges were visually demonstrated using high-speed, acoustic-camera 3D technology. Ambient sound reflections from a single source were tracked onto a virtual set allowing VR-programmers to place sound in a VR-space which could be tracked and properly oriented during VR-postproduction and game creation processes.