11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Session I:
Digital Cinema Overview - From Production and Distribution to Projection, Part I
The film industry is slowly transforming into a 100% digital experience, from the high end super-animated all-digital experience to the low budget digital feature production, from the creation of private digital broadband network to the transfer of digital dailies and then finally to the ultimate destination of immediate digital distribution of features and their projection in movie theatres. To kick-off this day-long track on digital cinema, we bring together players who can offer an overview of how digital cinema is changing the industry, speaking to the timeline of development and implementation. The day of end-to-end digital is very near.
Frank Stirling, Executive Director, Boeing Digital Cinema
Scott Sander, President and CEO, SightSound Technologies
Harry Mathias, Director of Digital Cinema, America, Barco
Russell J. Wintner, Principal of Exhibitor Relations and Alternative Programming, Technicolor Digital Cinema
Thomas J. Gritzmacher, President and Chief Operating Officer, Picture, PipeLine, LLC
Jon L. Korecki, Senior Director of Business Development, QUALCOMM Digital Media
Bob Mayson, General Manager Cinema Operations, Kodak
David Gajda, CEO, Hollywood Software, Moderator
Charles "Frank" Stirling is executive director of Digital Cinema for Boeing Satellite
Systems (BSS). He was appointed to this position in July 2001. In this capacity, he is responsible for the business and marketing of Boeing Digital Cinema, as well as all technical aspects of the Digital Cinema program, including the design, development and implementation of the digital cinema system. BSS is the world's largest supplier of communications satellites and a major provider of space systems, satellites, and payloads for national defense, science, and environmental applications. Stirling has more than 33 years of experience in aerospace engineering, operations and management. He joined BSS in April 1998. Prior to his current assignment, Stirling was manager of High Altitude Platforms. In this role, he led a team to develop future satellite platforms as well as a new airplane-based telecommunications service business for Boeing. Before that, Stirling was manager of the Communication Navigation Surveillance and Air Traffic Management program at BSS. He directed all activity relating to the development of a new business for an aeronautical navigation and communications service. This included business case and plan formulation, system architecture definition, financial planning, partner qualification and teaming, satellite and ground system development, and service definition and establishment. Prior to BSS, Stirling was president of Stratcom International, LLC. He was responsible for all activities relating to the of design and construction of a stratospheric airship for telecommunications applications. He also held executive positions with Science Applications International Corporation and other companies following his retirement from the U.S. Air Force in 1994. Stirling spent 25 years in the Air Force and rose to the rank of Colonel before he retired. He received his bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Southern California (USC), and a master in business administration degree in research and development management , also from USC. In addition, he attended the Squadron Officers School, Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, Industrial College of the Armed Forces and Defense Systems Management College. Stirling resides in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., with his wife, Robin Grebe Stirling. He has two adult children and enjoys golf and astronomy.Jon L. Korecki, Senior Director of Business Development, QUALCOMM Digital Media: Jon Korecki serves as Senior Director, Business Development for QUALCOMM Digital Media, where he provides the day-to-day management that has been vital to the company’s expansion into the emerging digital cinema market. In this capacity, Jon oversees the development of a turnkey digital cinema delivery system to distribute movies via digital images to theatres using high-end compression and sophisticated encryption technology. Jon’s experience in cutting edge technology development -- including engineering, product management, marketing and business development in satellite, cellular and security communications systems -- is instrumental in bringing QUALCOMM’s digital cinema technology to the marketplace. In addition to offering this technology to the marketplace, QUALCOMM is working with Technicolor (the joint venture is known as Technicolor Digital Cinema) in the development of end-to-end distribution technology and support services for the delivery of digital cinema to theatres worldwide. A member of SMPTE and the IEEE, Jon spent five years working on top secret secure communications programs for the U.S. government. He has also published several papers in the security realm in IEEE, Milcom and other military publications. Jon is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a minor in economics. He earned his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston.
Scott Sander is the President, CEO and Co-Founder of SightSound Technologies. Scott has emerged as a leading advocate for change in the motion picture and music
industries as they adopt digital distribution. Since he co-founded SightSound Technologies, the six-year-old company has made history three times: In 1995, SightSound sold the first downloadable music online; in 1999, rented the first full-length film download over the Internet; and on May 5, 2000 released the first Internet feature film. Scott negotiated the first movie Internet distribution agreement with Artisan Entertainment to release Darren Aronofsky’s Pi in 1999, and the first motion picture studio Internet distribution agreement with Miramax who will release 12 films for download through the Internet. Scott was also Executive Producer of Quantum Project, the first Internet feature film produced by Metafilmics. Scott is also a founding member of the Technology Network, a political action group focusing on federal legislation affecting emerging technology companies. Previously, Scott was the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kinetic Workplace, a Pennsylvania-based change management consultancy specializing in workplace innovation which he founded in 1987.Russell J. Wintner, Principal of Exhibitor Relations and Alternative Programming, Technicolor Digital Cinema: Technicolor Digital Cinema is a joint venture between Technicolor and QUALCOMM that will provide open, end-to-end distribution technology and support services for the delivery of digital motion pictures and related content to cinemas worldwide. Russ has 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and with start-up companies. In 1996, he co-founded CineComm Digital Cinema, the first to introduce digital cinema delivery of motion pictures to movie theaters around the world via satellite. He served as CineComm’s President, Exhibition and Chief Operating Officer. Russ orchestrated the world’s first public exhibition of a major motion picture (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) in digital form to a paying audience. A member of the National Association of Theatre Owners Board of Directors since 1975, Russ has served a variety of offices. He is also a member of S.M.P.T.E., Motion Picture Pioneers, and holds positions with the Greater Cleveland Association of Independent Theatres and I.A.T.S.E. Local 160 Pension and Health and Welfare Fund. He is a graduate of Lehigh University with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering.
Harry Mathias is Director of Digital Cinema, America with Barco Digital Cinema. H
e was Director of Motion Picture Technology, worldwide, for Schneider Optics Inc. Mathias was Senior Consultant to Panavision Inc. for 18 years. For whom he contributed to every generation of camera since the original Panaflex. He also contributed to the design of the Panacam video camera. He has been a member of most of the study groups of the SMPTE Digital Cinema DC28 committee, since it’s beginnings. In the past, In the past, Mathias has consulted for, or designed equipment for Arriflex, Cinema Products, Eastman Kodak, and Spectra Cine. He holds several U.S. and Foreign Patents. In addition to his engineering work, Mathias has been a motion picture Director of Photography for 30 years, having made 21 feature films. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1980. He was the only American Consultant to the European Common Market on the subject of High Definition Television. Mathias is the author of many books including: ELECTRONIC CINEMATOGRAPHY, published by Wadsworth (in 3 languages); co-author with Vice President Al Gore, of the book: HDTV, THE POLITICS, POLICIES, AND ECO-NOMICS OF TOMORROW'S TELEVISION; contributing author to TELEVISION IMAGE QUALITY, a book published by the SMPTE; contributing author to THE AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER’S HANDBOOK and the AMERICAN VIDEOGRAPHER’S VIDEO HANDBOOK. He has taught classes at UCLA, USC, Stanford University, American University, The American Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, and the Directors Guild of America's Forum for Continuing Education.David Gajda is CEO of Hollywood Software, Inc., which develops and markets entertainment industry software applications used to manage, distribute and administer creative content. M
r. Gajda has over 18 years of experience in the development of entertainment industry systems. He has worked with many of the major entertainment companies in developing their strategic systems plans, including Sony Pictures, BMG Entertainment, EMI Music, New Line Cinema, MGM and Universal Music. He ran a successful entertainment systems consulting company for 10 years under the name of DWG International. Prior to starting DWG, David was vice president of MIS at CBS/Fox Video. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Systems from the University of Michigan. Mr. Gajda is a member of the Digital Coast Roundtable.Arthur D. Allen is the chief scientist at Burst.com, where he has been employed since July 1998. His activities at Burst have included the conception of a novel multi-layer server architecture for streaming video and "live" performances over the Internet. This work encompassed the development of a number of groundbreaking call admission control (CAC) and optimal content flow modulation algorithms (patents pending). These algorithms deliver markedly improved quality of service to the end-user, while optimizing a server’s ability to accept clients and deliver content. Over the years Mr. Allen has been active as a consultant and researcher. While at Cellnet Data Systems he established the system architecture of a large-scale metropolitan-area digital cellular network serving the needs of the Electric Utilities nation-wide and in the UK. He has presented papers at leading international conference (such as OOPSLA and AAAI’s Autonomous Agent conference) bearing on his research into advanced event-driven object and agent architectures. Mr. Allen holds BS and MS degrees in EECS from UC Berkeley.Thomas J. Gritzmacher, President and Chief Operating Officer, Picture, PipeLine, LLC: In his role, Mr. Gritzmacher oversees all day-to-day operations of Picture PipeLine. Prior to joining Picture PipeLine, Mr. Gritzmacher was a senior executive at TRW, where for the last 14 years he was highly instrumental in successfully taking advanced space systems and government technology to the commercial sector. Mr. Gritzmacher began his career at TRW in 1986 as an Advanced Systems Manager in the Space and Electronics Group (S&EG) in Los Angeles. While in this position, he was responsible for the identification of TRW's internal space systems technology development programs for introduction to the organization's defense clients. As a result of his oversight of these programs, for which he was co-inventor on two United States patents, TRW generated more than $30 million in contracts from outside parties. Mr. Gritzmacher's most recent position at TRW was Digital Multimedia Line of Business Manager of TRW's Systems and Information Technology Group in which he was given the mandate to oversee the company's growing interest within the entertainment arena and began directing the development, creation and launch of Picture PipeLine. Prior to joining TRW, Mr.Gritzmacher was an Assistant Deputy for Research in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for Special Projects, supporting the National Reconnaissance Office. While there, he directed research and development programs which involved more than 20 scientific and engineering officers and an annual budget of more than $40 million. Mr. Gritzmacher received a bachelor of science in Physics from the University of Portland, a masters of science in Space Physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology, master of arts in Psychology from Chapman College and, lastly, a masters in business administration from California State University.