The sun is breaking through the clouds for the first time in days. It’s a fitting time to compose a letter, an invitation to production and post-production craftspeople and technical experts to play a more vocal (or maybe written?) role in Playback.

We’re essentially extending an invitation to you to join us in trying to further discussion of technological advancements taking place in film and tv production and in broadcasting.

Historically, the Production Technology section of Playback has consisted of our learning, or sometimes being told, that a particular new box or process is advancing the craft of filmmaking or tv-making to such a degree that it’s worth writing about. Then, either we wrote about it or we found Canadians taking advantage of this technology advance and had them describe how and why they were using the particular tool. We’ve explored homegrown and foreign inventions, everything from underwater camera housings and the ccd camera to the Harry, from film bar code inventions to the Video Toaster, through Media 100 and back again.

But it’s time our readers heard more of their own voices in this section of the paper, time the trends of the day were debated in our space.

We want you to help us decide how to allocate this space. Would you like to see Point/Counterpoint articles on trends in editing or special effects production, on advances in computer technology, on what’s important about multimedia or in the animator’s world?

Would you be willing to contribute to a series featuring ‘journals’ written by industry members? Suppose, here, you’re exploring new boxes or doing your first project on a new machine or else have found a revolutionary new use for an old machine or have even opened a new division of your business to address changing client demands.

Would you be interested in seeing more frequent, play-by-play (see a similar treatment in Storyboards, p. 13) analyses of how a post house or production crew generated special effects, graphics, in-camera or lighting effects?

We have just produced a series of mini-profiles on editors for a feature on post-production (see articles beginning p. 18). We didn’t get into a great deal of minutiae in this section or explore extensively the challenges editors faced down when they set out to assemble a feature, tv episode or a commercial spot. But we could, with your participation.

We could put together an ongoing series on issues and developments in the area of non-linear, desktop editing, a series which would interest both the audio and video sectors.

What about if you just won a major job at your neophyte shop (see a similar idea in the Commercial Directions column, p. 14) and you want to get the word out? Or, say, suddenly clients have recognized your expertise in a particular area and have rewarded you with a series of assignments – wouldn’t you like other potential clients to get the message?

We won’t tell if you don’t, of course, but why not tell? That way, in an ever-shrinking production/post community, there are more opportunities to discover the best talent for the job, more chances to create stars in our terminally star-shy culture, attract more business and keep it coming here to Canada.

We’d love to hear your ideas. Give us a call, ask for Susan or Mary, or send us a fax, addressed to ‘Production Technology Section, Playback’. Do it today.