SET- UP | I NTERV I EW
CINEALTA CELEBRATION Sony’s Venice camera was launched just a year ago. We take the opportunity to look back on the legacy of the CineAlta brand ANNIVERSARY
WORDS JULI AN M ITCHELL / PICTURES SONY
I n late 1995, Rick McCallum (producer for George Lucas) bought a widescreen digital betacam from Sony to support the shooting of ‘behind the scenes’ material during their movie and television productions. George himself was highly impressed at how far digital imaging had come and he conducted some tests, taking this out to 35mm film. George said it had everything in terms of image quality for credible moviemaking – except resolution. Larry Thorpe, who was working for Sony at the time arranged a special dinner meeting in the latter part of 1996 (during an LA SMPTE Fall Conference) between a management team from Sony Japan and a large team from Lucasfilm (led by Rick). At
the end of that dinner (and a lot of intense discussion) the then leader of the Sony team, Takeo Eguchi, pledged to develop a 24p system. This would be a variant on the HDCAM system planned to be delivered to the marketplace the following year. “In early 1997, we showed George and Rick the new HDCAM camcorder and again we did film out tests. George told us that the picture quality would meet his needs and he was anxious to move forward.” On 10 March 2000, a famous film out screening was held at Skywalker Ranch (the final tests on the prototype HDW-F900) and George Lucas asked for comments from all present. At the end of the discussion, he said, ‘Lets do it’ – and the commitment was
08 DEF I N I T ION | DECEMBER 20 1 8
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