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The San Francisco production community has banded together to throw its biggest community extravaganza in years. On Thursday, April 26th, more than a dozen companies and industry organizations have coordinated to host a production crawl where companies from the South of Market, Bayview, Bayshore and Mission neighborhoods are throwing their doors wide open to welcome colleagues, clients and guests to visit their facilities to reconnect and reinvigorate. The open house event, entitled Project Reboot, will begin at 3pm and end at 6pm.

After Project Reboot, the event will culminate at Beyond Pix Studios @Bayshore, a newly renovated soundstage, from 6pm to 8pm (or later...). Blues and jazz music of Max Bran Beat will rock the house. Hors devours and drinks will be served. Participants of Project Reboot will also be eligible to win prizes and the number of tickets one can submit for the drawing will depend on the number of facilities visited during the open house event.

Project Reboot is an extraordinary San Francisco/Bay Area event to compel industry professionals and clients to venture out to meet others face to face. In today’s smartphone, tablet and laptop dominated culture, we rely too much on the Internet to make connections, but in many ways it has disturbingly left many disconnected and disenfranchised. We seek to reverse that, to transcend the devices and to “reboot” our real life connections and promote friendships within the community. For many, this will serve as a reunion while for others, this could be their first industrial social event.

In any case, Project Reboot and the SOMA-palooza party is a stab at rallying the members of our industry to come together to see what and how others are doing, to visit their facilities to see where they work and to exchange ideas, business cards and swap stories.

After so many years of what many have perceived to be some of their toughest times, it’s imperative that we shake things up. Many are reporting that things are getting better and that business is looking up. We believe that is the case and Project Reboot is our emphatic statement that our best days are ahead of us and we’re just at the starting blocks.

If you want to join and enjoy this awesome event, please go to projectrebootsf.eventbrite.com and RSVP. Passports can be obtained at any of the open house locations, and will be stamped at every destination you visit which in turn will be converted to raffle tickets to qualify for several prizes including the new iPad. Drawing will be held at the SOMA-palooza soiree.

What's cool about the EPIC Camera:

The EPIC Camera is a hugely evolutionary and perhaps revolutionary step in the digital cinema camera world. RED took the best things about their original camera - put the specs on steroids - and the body on a diet - and kept it at a very reasonable price. For a base price of around $30K without a lens you can be up and shooting (although pretty stripped down). The camera is beautifully small, expandable and elegant. Now to the big 5:

Resolution - The Epic currently has the highest resolution recording availability of any player on the market. At 5K the Bayer sensor on the Epic has been highly optimized and provides a much better picture than the same sensor on the RED One MX. This high amount of resolution provides advanced capabilities to reframe, stabilize, hide noise and repurpose footage in post production. If you have never used an oversampled image in post than you really don't know what you have been missing. It's amazing to be able to have a Raw image that you can zoom into nearly 300% in post and still have enough detail for 1080p.

Dynamic Range - The Epic camera has all the detail in the world but if it can't handle contrasty situations then what is it worth? Fortunately for users the Epic has a built in Dynamic Range of about 13.5 stops. This doesn't quite do what film can do under certain situations but it certainly has brought it within striking distance. Under those situations where contrast is uncontrollable or it's not practical there is HDR-X. This is is truly revolutionary by the way it uses a simple concept in multiple exposures, and finds a way to mix everything together and approximate motion blur between the two streams to make a really organic feeling image.

Image Feel - This one will always be debatable but the images that you can get from the Epic camera have certainly excited a lot of people. According to John Schwartzman, Director of photography of The Amazing Spiderman "This is the best footage I have ever seen from any camera. Ever." The holy grail of film is how it deals with skin tones and many people believe that the Epic has finally found a way to give us the type of face reproductions that we've always been looking for in a digital camera.

RAW Flexibility in post - With the introduction of REDCODE nearly a decade ago the world was introduced to an amazingly robust 'raw' format that made extensive coloring and manipulation in post with very small file sizes a true reality. The latest versions of Redcode only improve on this and make the footage that more malleable and amazing.

Sensitivity - The RED One MX sensor helped to finally push the boundaries of what you could record with very low light on a cinema camera. Although 35mm film has continued to advance over its lifespan it has basically hit its limits with respect to sensitivity. This is far from true with digital sensors. The Epic gives its users the ability to take a fast lens set and finally shoot in actual candlelight. A thing that was once nearly unreachable and the thing of legend on films such as Barry Lyndon is now quite attainable and at very low noise levels. In fact the Epic can be reliably shot at ISO's of 2000 or higher with a very low grain image which opens up brand-new creative possibilities.

Resources:

EPIC Camera Rental

Video Production Contacts

Sacramento Video Production

$50 for 50 Contest

BLARE Media recently developed new free software for film professionals. However, in today’s market the old saying “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” unfortunately no longer applies for most products. This is why we created a contest to entice actors & crew such as yourselves to give our new software a test drive.

Contest:

We are giving away $50 to the first person with 50 contacts on contactsquid.com

ContactSquid.com Main Features:

1. Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) – How do you currently keep track of all your customers and vendor resources? We made it easy for your sales force to manage their leads and set reminders to follow up with them. If you don’t already have an online CRM this is definitely a step in the right direction to get you and your team more organized.

2. Referral System – Do you like receiving referrals from other businesses? We sure do and that is why we created this system that encourages members to send each other referrals in exchange for liking their page (Social exposure).

3. Internet Marketing – Sometimes it is easier to show rather than explain the technical jargon. To see a good example of the internet marketing portion please type in “Video Production Contacts” on Google and my profile shows up #1 in the organic search results.

Also, we display the top 25 contacts on our home page!

For more information on this contest or contactsquid.com please email us at info(at)contactsquid.com

San Francisco Production Industry Icon, Bayshore Studio, Saved from Demolition
Beyond Pix Studios Acquires Studio on Eve of Destruction; Embarks on Restoration, Facelift and Upgrade of Historic Space
Studio Re-opens as @Bayshore this Week, on March 9

SAN FRANCISCO — March 7 — Bayshore Studio played a central role in San Francisco’s thriving production industry for 17 years , but was slated for demolition after closing its doors in late 2011. Beyond Pix Studios acquired the facility in January to preserve, restore and re-open the space as a resource for the San Francisco production community. The studio is the only acoustically-designed and full-service sound stage production facility in San Francisco, with more than 6500 square feet and a 50x50 foot stage with a cyc wall.

“It’s been a tough 5 years for our industry as a whole, but I see a rebound gaining momentum, especially in the Bayshore district. As a new groundswell of film and video companies have opened in that area during the last 6 months, it makes sense to preserve the Bayshore Studio space for local companies to leverage as the rebound continues,” said Ray Santiago, Beyond Pix Founder.
The studio will be re-opened as @Bayshore on March 9, at 2178 Palou Avenue in San Francisco, after a substantial restoration and upgrades.

New Look and Services @ Bayshore

In addition to a facelift, @Bayshore will operate differently than in the past. The new studio will support the local industry by making itself available in a wide array of configurations – from fully equipped and staffed to being rented as a dry stage. Clients will now be welcome to use @Bayshore as an open source and bring their own staff, equipment, roll up their own trucks, etc.
“The re-opening of the old Bayshore Studio is an enormous asset to our community, as it’s never good to lose such an important resource. Beyond Pix has a great reputation for being honest and fair, as well as giving back to the community, so we totally support their endeavor,” said Janet Coleman, owner of JCX, a company providing expendables to the San Francisco film and video communities for more than 20 years. “I know they’ll be a big success!”
@Bayshore is now open for business and can be seen by appointment. It is fully functional and operational, although renovations continue.

Community Celebration and Open House

A San Francisco Production Industry party is planned in conjunction with the re-opening of Bayshore Studio as @Bayshore. The company will be joined by several other film and video businesses in the SoMa area to host open houses on a day in mid April (date TBD) from 3pm to 8pm.



History of Bayshore Studio
Bayshore Studio operated as the only acoustically-designed, full-service sound stage in San Francisco for 17 years. It hosted local, national and international productions ranging from commercials and corporate videos to music videos and independent feature work.
The company fulfilled a need for a real sound stage in San Francisco and worked with musicians, corporations and politicians including Metallica, Charles Schwab and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
About Beyond Pix

Beyond Pix Studios is a leading video production company in San Francisco, California, specializing in video production, post-production, creative services, broadcast services, media training and interactive media. For an online tour, visit beyondpix.com. With a full-service location in the heart of the Media Gulch neighborhood for 20 years, Beyond Pix recently expanded by opening @ Bayshore, San Franisco’s largest shooting stage, in the Bayshore neighborhood of the SoMa district.

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Media Contacts:
Jen Newmann • 415.434.1027 • jen@beyondpix.com
Tony Welch • 415.434.1027 • tony@beyondpix.com

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