The 100,000-plus attendees expected to be at the NAB Show arrive in Las Vegas for a multitude of reasons: Some come to play; some come to work; others arrive to gather information, or to “go shopping” in the show’s massive exhibit halls.
But for one special interest community — video production and post-production professionals — there’s another agenda: to get the latest information on field and post production at the NAB Post|Production World Conference.
Billed as “the largest production and post-production educational conference in the world,” the NAB Post|Production World Conference presents a unique opportunity for editors, designers, artists and other production professionals to sharpen their skills and share their experiences. The six-day program is produced jointly by NAB and Future Media Concepts, which provides manufacturer-authorized training in digital media techniques at multiple U.S. locations.
The conference includes the popular “Boot Camp” series of courses, designed to give participants a solid foundation in any of several industry-leading content creation platforms. Advanced conference tracks offer certification for fully-trained, professional-level practitioners in specific disciplines. Video production courses address topics across the broad spectrum of the content creators’ profession, while their business acumen is bolstered by a series of workshops on the commercial side of creativity.
EDITORS FEATURED
For many attendees, notable Post|Production World highlights include keynote addresses by leading feature film editors who share their insights into editing styles, processes and techniques.
Saturday’s keynote featured Steven Mirrione, Academy Award-winning editor of Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 hit film “Traffic,” while Jay Cassidy, Oscar-nominated for cutting last year’s “Into the Wild” for director Sean Penn, delivered Sunday’s keynote.
The NAB Post|Production World Conference, which began Friday, continues to offer both broad-ranging workshops and highly specialized master classes through Wednesday.
Monday’s schedule includes non-technical “Career Workshops” on business networking and creative promotional techniques, in addition to several sessions for digital video production professionals; audio production topics share the stage with an expert-led discussion of workflow strategies for P2 “tapeless” production.
In-depth and advanced offerings include topics tailored for Avid, Apple Motion and Adobe After Effects users, as well as broader sessions on DVD menu creation and multicamera editing techniques.
Tuesday begins a two-day certification class for Apple Motion, in addition to a full schedule of Post|Production World course tracks.
At the beginner end of the scale, Tuesday’s Boot Camp offerings include an introduction to Autodesk’s powerful Maya 3D animation package, as well as Adobe Premiere Pro. The Digital Video Production track offers topics like “Producing Video for the Web” and “Overseas Production,” while both Avid and Final Cut Studio course tracks discuss color correction, among other subjects. And advanced content on Adobe After Effects, Apple Motion and Adobe Photoshop is available for motion graphics designers and animators.
A variety of specialty topics rounds out the schedule for Wednesday, the last day of the NAB Post|Production World Conference.
Notable topics include a Flash Video course track with four sessions; a series of five discussions under the “Career Workshop” banner; and, among the Final Cut Studio offerings, a session on the intricacies of Apple’s venerable Compressor tool. The nuts-and-bolts subjects covered in Digital Video Production include makeup, interviewing and “Working with Talent on the Set.”
