This past week, I attended 2 days worth of workshops organized by PBS’s Public Television Quality Group (PTVQG). It was held at Boston’s WGBH, the single largest producer of web and TV content for PBS (Nova, Masterpiece, Frontline, Antiques Roadshow, Curious George, Arthur, etc.).

The idea behind PTVQG started about 2.5 years ago, recognizing the transition to digital and HD offered not only opportunities to deliver great new content, but also new challenges throughout production and distribution. Their mission was to offer education and training on the best practices for production and delivery of HD content.

The Boston workshops were the 3rd of 3 stops, the first 2 being in San Francisco and St. Paul. It was hands down the best set of video production workshops and lectures I’ve attended, offering speakers ranging from:

  • Mark Schubin, a film historian;
  • Douglas Trumbull, effects supervisor for movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner;
  • Steve Audette, award winning editor for Frontlines and NOVA;
  • Ben McCoy, cinematographer with 20 years experience shooting docs and programs such as Frontlines and NOVA;
  • The list goes on…

Most of the talks were recorded for future online tutorials at PTVQG’s site. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting notes from some of the talks I attended. Hope you find them useful…

event film hd news and notes tips