D.W. Leitner Garners SMPTE Fellowship

This past year New York’s own David Leitner garnered acclaim from the nation’s motion media tech elites via Fellowship recognition from SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers). David combines deep creative and technical chops. Over decades of production, he has built a solid, near unique rep with the city’s indie film and digital media communities as a solve-it-all tech ninja. He’s piloted films that premiered at Sundance, built custom optical printers for fabled DuArt, and has even seen his product suggestions turn up in the latest camcorders.

While David wonders what such distinction could have meant for him earlier in his career, he still expressed gratitude for such recognition by his peers.

I could go on and praise his tech writing too, but that’s just inside pool (I edited his writing while a staff editor at Millimeter magazine). If you’re interested, read more here from SMPTE about him as well as the other 2017 awardees.

Mark Schubin

SMPTE also made a Presidential Proclamation recognizing another New York tech media notable, Mark Schubin. The award committee noted his “status and reputation in the motion picture, television, and motion-imaging industries worldwide.” Another good writer, too.

The Presidential Proclamation recognizes individuals of established and outstanding Mark Schubin will receive the award in recognition of his five decades of contributions to the television technology industry. An internationally recognized expert with an insatiable intellectual curiosity, Schubin has worked in every aspect of television production, including design, manufacturing, lighting, sound, camera, editing, distribution, as well as talent, and his projects have spanned every continent of the globe. Today, he supports the broadcasting of Metropolitan Opera (The Met) productions to cinemas and televisions around the world. Schubin is an active SMPTE Life Fellow and a sought-after resource in educating the industry on the history and current state of motion-imaging technology.

From SMPTE’s announcement in August 2017 regarding the awardees.

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

A letter from International Cinematographers Guild President John Lindley and 13 other top cinematographers was sent to Hollywood studios urging them to reduce excessively long workday hours on film sets as they resumed talks with IATSE on Tuesday on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Along with Lindley, the letter was signed by four Oscar-winning cinematographers, including Roger A. Deakins (“1917,” “Blade Runner 2049”), Emmanuel Lubezki (“The Revenant”), Erik Messerschmidt (“Mank”), and John Toll (“Braveheart”).

Read the full article on TheWrap by clicking here.

PITTSFIELD — Get Diane Pearlman talking about visual effects and she will provide several stories about cutting-edge techniques that were created in the Berkshires for many well-known movies.

For six years in the 1990s, Pearlman served as executive producer and general manager of Mass.Illusion, a visual effects movie studio that had an office in Lenox. Two movies that Mass.Illusion worked on in the Berkshires, “What Dreams May Come” and “The Matrix,” received Academy Awards for visual effects in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Mass.Illusions no longer exists, but Pearlman remained in the Berkshires after the company was sold. She now serves as executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative, an organization that promotes and facilitates film and media production in the Berkshires.

To read the full story on The Berkshire Eagle, click here.

Last month, Ben Gottlieb, a 27-year-old set lighting technician, wanted to show his support for his union’s campaign to improve working conditions on film sets so he wrote an Instagram post calling for an end to 12- to 14-hour shifts.

As with many of his colleagues, the Brooklynite felt burned out after working grueling hours without substantial breaks for much of the last year. Some nights, he was so tired driving home that he felt inebriated. He even thought about quitting — only two years after joining his union, IATSE Local 52.

The post struck a chord, drawing more than 21,000 likes. Gottlieb was soon inundated with messages from industry colleagues sharing their own stories, which prompted him to create a dedicated page called IATSE Stories. In just a few weeks, more than 500 posts have drawn nearly 17,000 followers to the page.

To read the entire story on the Los Angeles Times’ site, click here.

IATSE leaders say they remain “very far apart” on a wide range of issues in their negotiations with management’s AMPTP for a new film and TV contract.

“After more than six weeks of negotiation over a period of four months, it remains clear that the employers are unwilling to resolve our priority issues – living wages, reasonable rest, meal breaks, sustainable benefits and streaming – aka ‘not so new media,’” IATSE president Matthew Loeb and leaders of the union’s 13 West Coast studio locals said today in a message to their members.

To read the full article on Deadline.com, click here.

IATSE is gearing up for a possible strike against the film and television industry, which would be the first industry-wide strike in the union’s history. The union and management’s AMPTP will return to the bargaining table on Thursday in an effort to reach an agreement on a new film and TV contract in advance of Friday’s expiration of their current deal.

A strike, if it comes to that, would still be several weeks away, however, as IATSE continues to lay the groundwork for a possible walkout, which includes a text-messaging campaign to educate members about the negotiations and what’s at stake.

To read the full article on Deadline, click here.