By Pauline Rogers

There were so many “hot” tools (both literally and figuratively – temps at this year’s Cine Gear, June 19-21, soared near 110 degrees!) we were unable to cover them all in our August issue. So, ICG Magazine took another metaphoric stroll through the heat and excitement on the Universal Studios Backlot to profile another batch of tools that just might make things easier, faster, and more creative for your next commercial, music video, documentary, television or feature shoot.

Brute 16
The Brute 16 from LEDz began shipping in early August and is already a popular tool with both television and feature crews. At just 2.5” deep, 8” wide and 23” high, the new element is a powerful 5500W Kelvin LED fixture. It is equivalent to an HMI 200 watt flood. Weighing in at just 5.5 pounds, it is powered by AC-DC, with a 100-240 volt AC input and 16.5 volt/4.4Amp output or 60 watts. A rectangular horizontal field provides a beam angle from six to 16 feet, and a color temperature of 5500 degrees Kelvin. “The Brute 16 system will prove to be one of the most powerful 5500 Kelvin LED fixtures in the world,” boasts Malcolm Mills, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of LEDz, LLC. “It’s got an amazing life span and extremely low power consumption, which is what so many productions are looking for these days.”

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By Jon Silberg

Digital Workflow Seminar Highlights Evolving Technologies and Processes for Unit Still Shooters and Publicists

As part of the Guild's ongoing efforts in education and training, the Stills branch presented a digital workflow seminar (April 27, 2008), targeted at both unit photographers and publicists, to review key points about what happens to digital photographs after they're taken. For many photographers, particularly those who switched to digital

cameras after years or even decades of shooting film, the information served an essential purpose, if not a necessary professional goal: while photographers are typically not responsible for processing, converting or editing their RAW files, consequences may follow if they don't know how to communicate with the people that do. Likewise, the attending photo publicists were able to come away from the event with an expanded sense of the technical and economic issues unit photographers face and, during the “speed dating” portion of the day, with some new talent to add to the pool.

"The technology to both shoot and manage the workflow is constantly changing," said Local 600 Unit Photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker, organizer of the event. "We had a representative from Nikon talk about their newest camera, the Nikon D3, and we learned about the latest technology from Adobe Lightroom (V 1.4.1 and Lightroom 2.0 Public Beta). We talked about the challenges of archiving digital images, and even presented a 'speed dating' session with photo publicists. They saw a large number of portfolios in a short time to give advice and provide more resources."

ICG Magazine spoke with some of the people who participated in the event to distill the pressing issues related to unit publicity and photography. First and foremost,

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