The International Cinema Technology Association (ICTA) announced
today that more than 250 of its members from 130 different companies participated
in its Los Angeles Seminar Series held in January at the Universal Hilton.
“Attendance was up slightly from previous years,” said Bob Sunshine’s Executive
Director, “and from the feedback we’ve heard, the participants found the
sessions helpful, informative and energizing.”
Sunshine
pointed out the diversity of the topics addressed by participants. “This was
the twenty-third year we’ve held the conference in Los Angeles, and this year,
the sessions were more varied than ever. We heard so many different points of view, all from experts in their
fields.” In a series of half-hour sessions, attendees heard presentations on a
variety of audio systems, standards, and their performance in real rooms – and
on imaging issues, including HDR and wide color gamut. Exhibitors, dealers and security experts
spoke out in panel discussions; and manufacturers gave updates on new products
and service improvements.
The group made two cinema visits and
one to a historic landmark – to see new screen technology and hear about
eSports. “And because we were meeting in LA, we took advantage of the talent
that’s here,” Sunshine added. “We had live interviews with Jeff Forman, Senior
Vice President, International Distribution, for Walt Disney Studios; with Jon
Landau, producer of Avatar, Titanic and Alita: Battle Angel; and with Paul Dergarabedian, senior media
analyst for Comscore. They offered perspectives that go beyond technology, but
which influence technology and in turn are influenced by it.”
Chairperson
of the conference was Mark Mayfield, Director of Global Cinema Marketing at QSC.
Alan Roe, CEO of JACRO and ICTA President handled most of the introductory
duties, keeping it all on schedule. In addition to the multi-day LA seminars, ICTA
offers shorter sessions at CinemaCon, ShowEast and CineAsia. And this year, for
the first time, ICTA will post edited versions of multiple session
presentations from the LA conference on their website (Please clink
here
for the Q&A with President Roe).
