The Reel Thing XXVII
August 18-20, 2011
The Reel Thing Technical Symposium
is organized and coordinated by Grover Crisp and Michael Friend

Speaker Bios ....

Thomas Bakels
Thomas is the founder of ALPHA-OMEGA digital GmbH in Munich, Germany, a Post Production facility involved in high quality mastering and specializing in film restoration. He started out as an audio engineer, a video editing operator, the head of a broadcasting department for local TV station, among other positions in the 1980's. In the mid-90's, he became head of post production at a large post house in Munich, in charge of video and audio post, film transfer, graphics and animation. In 1998, he founded Alpha-Omega as a specialized Post-House for high quality film transfer. In 1999, they performed restoration of the first nitrate stock from 1904 with tinted prints. In 2000-01, they performed the first digital restoration of METROPOLIS, later handled 2K-Scanning of John Fords BUCKING BROADWAY from nitrate, as well as numerous high-resolution restoration projects scanning footage dating back to 1896 (Skladanowsky's O-Negs), many HD-remastering jobs from Original-Negatives between 1930s and 1990s. In 2010, they were asked to work on the restoration of the found Argentinean footage for METROPOLIS, mastering the completed work in 2K.

Tom Burton
As Director of Technicolor Restoration Services, Mr. Burton guides a team of technical and creative specialists dedicated to the art and science of image restoration and preservation. Burton's team provides a wide range of specialized services to major film studios, production companies and image archives worldwide, including restoration and re-mastering, digital image repair for both vintage and first-run feature films, and creation of archival preservation elements for film and video library assets. Recent work includes projects for Paramount Studios, The Walt Disney Company, la Cinémathèque Français, 20thCentury Fox, Shanghai Film Group, Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Groupama Gan Foundation, HBO and NBC-Universal, among many others. Prior to joining Technicolor, Burton's Emmy Award-winning production company provided animation, visual effects and motion control model/ miniature photography for the U.S. and international film and television markets. Mr. Burton received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Bradley University and pursued graduate studies in filmmaking and animation at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Burton is an active member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS), the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and serves as advisor to the College of Communications and Fine Arts, Bradley University. In recognition of Burton's contributions to the institution, California State University, Northridge has named the school's traditional animation facility the Burton Animation Laboratory. Burton's spare moments are spent pursuing his other creative passion: playing club dates with his Los Angeles-based blues band.\

Larry Chernoff
Larry began his career in the 1970's as a film editor in New York, later founding a Los Angeles-based FilmCore, a creative film editing boutique servicing the advertising and motion picture industries. He co-founded Encore, a post production company responsible for innovations in the electronic process of post producing entertainment television, feature films, and introducing the Avid nonlinear editing system to the entertainment television industry. Larry co-founded R!OT, a post company servicing high end commercial post production and motion picture visual effects. He was later President of 4MC, and then Ascent Media Group Creative Services, including its Los Angeles, New York, and London operations. He was responsible for the consolidation and rationalization of over 20 companies with revenues exceeding $200mm.

Larry is currently the CEO of MTI Film, a software development company specializing in film restoration, and dailies facilitation where he helps in the development of their award winning Correct DRS and Control Dailies applications, as well as their latest development, Convey, a file based delivery system. MTI's restoration division has restored films for Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and other studios. The company last year also expanded into the episodic television business by introducing complete file-based post workflows.

Theodore Gluck
Theo is Director of Library Restoration and Preservation and a 20 year veteran with The Walt Disney Studios. He received his Masters Degree in Film Studies from Boston University in 1984, and was the teaching assistant for noted film scholar Roger Manvell. He was an active member of the New York City Projectionist's local for seven years, working at Todd-AO Studios as well as the American Museum of the Moving Image, and during that time was also a consultant for both the LucasFilm TAP Program, and Dolby Labs. During his tenure at Disney, Theo has served as the Director of Foreign Post Production for Disney Character Voices International, and was also the Manager of Film Operations for Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. He has been involved in numerous projects ranging from Super 8 through 3D IMAX printing strategies. He served as the Technical Coordinator for the 70mm premiere of The Lion King at Radio City Music Hall, and helped mount the outdoor German premiere of Pocahontas at the Olympic Park in Munich. He has been stewarding the Studio's Restoration Project since 2004 with the release of BAMBI on DVD, and coordinated the scanning and preservation of the Studio's nitrate negatives. Theo has contributed to the syllabus for the Studio's World Wide Post Production Operations education and training program. A member of SMPTE, BKSTS, and AMIA, Theo has also lectured and written extensively on the history of cinema technologies including, widescreen processes, Technicolor, and multi-channel stereo sound formats.

George Gush
George Gush is the Technical Sales Manager North America for Fujifilm North America Corporation. Providing management, sales, technical and marketing support, George Gush is the Technical Sales Manager for Fujifilm North America Corporation located in Burbank CA. With over 28 years in the filmed entertainment business, George works with the production, laboratory, post production, and the digital intermediate facilities through all stages from principal photography, post production, digital intermediate and printing processes. He has done extensive work with the scanner and recorder manufacturers on the development of new hybrid film/electronic products optimizing film in the process. He is a graduate of Saint Lawrence University in Canton New York.

Robert Heiber
Bob Heiber has been involved in film sound preservation since 1990 when he joined Chace Productions. Chace Audio joined the Deluxe family of companies on July 1st of 2009, and Bob is the Vice President of Audio for the Division. Bob has been a member of AMIA since 1991, and is also a member of SMPTE, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and ACVL. Bob has served on the National Film Preservation Board Advisory Task Force, the Library of Congress panel for the State of American Television and Video Preservation and is currently chairing the Education, Training and Research Committee for the National Recording Preservation Board. He has spoken on film sound preservation, restoration and re-mastering at AMIA, ACVL, SMPTE and ARSC conferences. Prior to joining Chace, Bob was the Manager of Technical Operations at Warner Hollywood Studios and an award winning documentary/industrial filmmaker in Chicago, Illinois. Bob graduated from Purdue University in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in Radio-TV-Film.

Hiroshi "James" Hirano
James Hirano is the Product and Technical Support Manager for Fujifilm North America Corporation located in Burbank CA, and also serves as the Motion Picture Division Corporate Representative for Fujifilm Corporation, Japan. James has been with FUJIFILM Corporation for over 25 years, 17 of which involved imaging products like photographic film and photofinishing. In 2005, he was named Research Manager at R&D, Motion Picture division, Japan. He developed the world's first Digital Recording Film RDI, which won an Academy Technical & Science Award for 2009. He also developed ETERNA Vivid 160T, 500T, 250D and the BW recording film RDS. In 2010, He moved to the Burbank office. He is a graduate of Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan.

Jim James
Jim James is Chief Engineer at Point.360 Digital Film Labs in Burbank, CA. A long time veteran of the post-production industry, he has worked with just about every piece of technology the industry has seen. For years he specialized in telecine technologies and high-end computer effects networks before taking on the challenge of managing the technology of entire facilities. At Point.360 he led the design and development of the company's proprietary HD film recorder, and has written many software applications that are part of the company's file based workflow. A graduate of the Film department at San Diego State University, he recently completed the digital archiving of his own 16mm student films.

Andrea Kalas
Andrea has been Vice President of Archives at Paramount Pictures since 2009. She has worked as an archivist at the British Film Institute, Discovery Communications, Dreamworks and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. She is a former President of AMIA and holds a Masters from UCLA in film history. She recently co-edited the European Metadata Standard for Cinematographic Works and restored DRACULA, 1958, d. Terence Fisher.

Dave Kenig
Dave Kenig has worked at Panavision in a technical capacity for over 25 years. He studied film at Temple University and has an ongoing interest in film history and technology.

Annike Kross
Annike studied restoration of Moving Image and Photography at the University of Applied Science in Berlin, where she finished her studies in 2006, graduating cum laude. Topic of her final thesis: The Simulation Of Tinting And Toning Using The So-called Desmet Method. She has worked since 2007 at EYE Film Institute Netherlands as a film restorer. Responsible amongst others for the restoration of J'ACCUSE (Abel Gance - FR, 1919) and SHOES (Lois Weber - USA, 1916). She is currently working on the restoration of THE SPANISH DANCER (Herbert Brenon - USA, 1923).

Christian Lurin
Since 2006, Christian is Manufacturing Manager of Éclair Group, the mother company of Éclair Laboratories. In his position, he oversees all operations of both the photochemical lab and the digital lab of Éclair. From 1985 to 2006, he held various positions for Eastman Kodak Company, in R&D, manufacturing and customers services, in the US and France. In 2001, he received a technical award from the AMPAS for his contribution in designing a new Kodak sound recording film. In 1982, he graduated from Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité where he earned an engineering degree in electronics and computer science. He received his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Bordeaux in 1985.

Kevin Manbeck
Kevin Manbeck received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University in 1990 with a focus on statistical models for image processing. Soon thereafter, Kevin founded a film division at Mathematical Technologies Inc. in order to develop algorithms and tools for motion picture restoration. Digital Restoration ServicesTM (DRS) was the first commercial product released to the market by MTI Film. Some of the titles which benefited in the early days of DRS include Pygmalion, Amarcord, and The Ten Commandments. Kevin is currently CTO at MTI Film and is responsible for the continued evolution of its algorithms for motion picture processing.

Michael Mortilla
Michael Mortilla's scores appear on the soon to be released Treasures 5 DVD set from National Film Preservation Foundation. He recently scored and edited sound for Fragments for Turner Classic Movies and scored The Rink for the world's first internet broadcast of a feature film with sound (AFI-1997). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has frequently employed Michael's composing and performing skills over the last decade, including original ensemble scores for 7th Heaven, The Gaucho, Humoresque, and Upstream, as well as AMPAS promotional and educational videos. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned several original scores with Michael as piano soloist in his own work, with similar orchestral performances and commissions from the Olympic Games Arts Festival, The Harvard Pops Orchestra, The Greensboro Symphony, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress. Largely self-taught, Michael served as company pianist and collaborator for Martha Graham and as a member of the faculty at UC Santa Barbara for well over a decade. To date, he has composed nearly one-thousand original, produced scores and sound designs for theater, dance, film, TV, radio, and the concert hall. Michael can be found at MIDI Life Crisis (.com).

Andrew Oran
Andrew Oran is currently the Vice President of Sales and Operations, Specialty Film, at Fotokem. Andrew joined FotoKem in 2004 to lead their Specialty Film Division, encompassing 65 and 70mm processing, printing, hi-rez scanning, HD telecine, and related 3D finishing services. The division's activities range from IMAX format film production to Hollywood feature large format work to hi-end film restoration. He is at present helping craft digital specifications for giant screen exhibition. He has worked almost exclusively on 65mm film projects since 1994.

David Pierce
David Pierce is a motion picture archivist and historian. He founded the Media History Digital Library to provide wide public access to print materials in the public domain. He has also been active as a motion picture copyright consultant, produced the theatrical and DVD release of Peter Pan (1924), and prepared major research reports for American archives on expanding access to collections. From 2001 to 2005, he was Head of Preservation and then Curator (chief) of the National Film and Television Archive at the British Film Institute. Mr. Pierce's numerous articles on film history, distribution, exhibition and ownership have appeared in American Film, Film Comment, American Cinematographer, The Moving Image and Film History. He can be reached at prizma2@gmail.com.

John Polito
John Polito has been at the forefront of digital sound restoration since its inception. After graduating in 1987 from Stanford University with honors in Music Composition and Digital Signal Processing, John joined Sonic Solutions and helped define the field by assisting in the development of the first digital audio workstation for sound restoration. In 1991 he started Audio Mechanics, which is one of the premier sound restoration facilities.

Ralph Sargent
Ralph Sargent has been involved in preservation for over 40 years, first teaching at UCLA in the 1960's. He formed Film Technology Company in 1971, a film laboratory specializing in preservation and restoration of film, but also including video and audio. Their clients include all the studios, UCLA film and television archive, MoMA and other archives. Ralph is also the author of "Preserving the Moving Image", published in 1974.

Jayson Wall
Jayson Wall is currently a Project Manager of Studio Mastering for The Walt Disney Company. He started his career as an assistant to director/writer/producer Rod Lurie, and then moved to New Line Cinema into the asset management department overseeing YCM preservation masters for the studio. Since then he has worked at Pro-Tek Media Preservation and Cinetech Film Labs as a senior restoration technician. Presently at Walt Disney, he is involved on numerous re-mastering and live-action restorations such as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Old Yeller, Pollyanna and The Absent-Minded Professor. Jayson is also a member of the studio's animation restoration team responsible for preserving feature length animated classics including Dumbo, Alice In Wonderland and Fantasia. He is presently serving his first term as a Director Of The Board for the Association Of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA).

Josh Wiggins
As Vice President of Business Development for Thought Equity Motion, Josh Wiggins is responsible for providing solutions to customers, account management and establishing strategic partnerships for Thought Equity. Before joining Thought Equity Motion, Wiggins was Vice President of Business Development, West Coast at Digitalsmiths, a video metadata solution provider. In this role, he was responsible for corporate development, strategic partnerships and developing customer relationships worldwide. Prior to Digitalsmiths, Wiggins spent 5+ years at Ascent Media in many different roles including Operations, Business Development and Strategic Solutions. Wiggins was responsible for delivering archive and content management solutions for major studios and other library owners around the globe. With more than a decade of experience in the media and technology marketplace, Wiggins has held roles in customer operations, technical services, project management and sales.