John Jarrett of Hamilton, Ontario, caught the broadcasting bug while attending McMaster University where he joined an association called the Board of Student Broadcasting that eventually launched the University's own radio station.  John's better known contemporaries at the radio and its co-relation, the film board, were Ivan Rietman, Dave Thomas and Martin Short.  The experience led to a full time job in the University's educational television department. John joined ONtv (then CHCH-TV) in 1973 as an audio engineer and worked both on the production side of sound design and the engineering side of audio systems design. His Credits ranged from B.B. King to Jack Jones and from the Hamilton Philharmonic to George Hamilton IV. In 1980 John was promoted to Technical Director and his responsibilities included production and technical design for such major events as NHL hockey, CFL football and the Calgary Olympics. John became involved with Newscast Operations and production and became  involved, on a part-time basis,  with operational design of engineering projects. He was part of the design team for Delta 1, Canada's first all digital television production mobile. John also created and taught an extension course on Audio/Video Systems Design for the Mohawk College Engineering Department . In 1997John joined the engineering group at ONtv to help orchestrate the path from an NTSC analog television station to a fully digital and eventually a high definition one.  His most recent big project was to integrate a high speed 3D modeling system capable of the real-time rendering of complex animations, that are driven by the continuously changing perspectives generated by military target acquisition technology.  More simply, his team built Canada's first live Virtual Set.

  J. Noxon Leavitt of West Flamborough, Ontario, was the Founder, President, and CEO of Istec Limited, from 1974 until he sold the company in 1987. Istec was formed to develop and market the WESCAM and other proprietary systems and devices which grew out of a requirement for the Canadian military, which Nox supervised at Westinghouse Canada, Electronics Division.  Nox holds many patents for such things as an Airborne Tethered Platform, a Large-Format Stereo Camera System, and an Apparatus for Mounting a Camera on a Vehicle, and is the winner of several Emmys for television productions which used the services of his company, and a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for the invention and continuing development of the Wescam Stabilized Camera System.

  Nox has many interesting subjects from which to choose, including an explanation of his method of gyroscopically stabilizing camera platforms, some of the more interesting problems and experiences with Wescam, his current project building stabilized mounts for IMAX cameras, and, especially intriguing, " tour of my 'museum': a review of 'science' and 'magic' topics near to my heart".
 

  More recently Rael videotaped 30 of the 50,000 interviews conducted around the world for the Steven Spielberg project, Survivors of the Shoah  (Holocaust). Rael will explain the complex project and describe some of the difficulties with which he had to contend in a sensitive manner, and while he  won't be able to show us any of those videos (the archival database will be available only in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, Paris, Sydney, Jerusalem and Toronto) he will be able to screen an instructional video which Steven Spielberg made showing how the interviews should be recorded.

   Phil Utech, a young videomaker from Tonawanda, NY, will present  Plastic Dinosaur: The Movie, a low budget spoof which features performances by many members of the Buffalo Movie-Video Makers.
 

Ivan Reel is a Product Trainer for Consumer Video Products with Sony of Canada. His background is rooted in graphics where he has taught applications such as PhotoShop, Illustrator and Internet technologies from the perspective of the graphic artist. With the emergence of high quality consumer acquisition systems like D8 and DV, the role of the graphic artist has now become a strong component of the production cycle.   A brief discussion will be held on production issues that surround video professionals today with the advent of digital technologies, and Ivan  will demonstrate SONY's new Digital and Hi8-Digital Camcorders and the DVMC-DA1 Analog to digital and digital to analog video converter. He'll alsobring along a MacIntosh G3 Computer with Final Cut Pro to better show the capabilities of the SONY Camcorders.

  Ivan will also tell us about the new HDTV standards and what they mean to Prosumers and there is also a good possibility that Brian Young of the Broadcast and Professional Division will also be present to talk about SONY's less expensive professional camcorders.
 
 

  Don "Tinker" Svob, of Wellandport, Ontario, the Do-It-Yourself Guru of Amateur Video who has played most SCCA affiiated clubs in Canada, is the "poor man's Noxon Leavitt".  From rigging a small tripod to mimic a steadicam, to building a simple device to smooth out wave action when shooting from a canoe, "Tinker's" ingenuity seems boundless. Some devices rely on the principles of physics, some depend on electricity, and some seem to come out of a keen power of observation crossed with extreme parsimony. Don will present more of his hints, tips, and economical solutions to video makers' problems.
 

  John Zale of Chicago, will be demonstrating ScreenPlay., a new all-in-one nonlinear editing system. Before joining the Applied Magic team, John owned and operated his own video production company for 15 years, specializing in events, both personal and corporate. John has also been a Technical Editor for WEVA (Wedding and Event Videographers Association) for the last 3 years, and his activities with WEVA led to contact with Applied Magic of California, who was about to introduce their new product. John has subsequently become Regional Account Manager for Applied Magic with responsibility for the US Midwest, and central Canada. This product is brand new, or more accurately, almost ready for market. You may have seen it in the video magazines. Now you can be among the very first in Canada to see the product as John will be flying it in from Chicago for a demonstration.
     "We're extremely excited about the potential of ScreenPlay and the benefits it can provide for all levels of video professionals and serious amateurs. The feature we're most excited about is ScreenPlay's true real time capability. Combining Wavelet Compression Technology with our own patented chipset allows for all of our 2D Effects to playback in real time. Currently, with ScreenPlay a real time edit can consist of two streams of video with Gamma Correction, a transition, keyed graphics, and four pairs of stereo audio, playing back in real time. Not only is all of this possible, but the video signal looks great too!"

Aludra Software in Toronto, Ontario, produces Beat 2000, a unique Music Utility for PC computers (available online for $39.95 US) which has some very interesting possibilities for video makers. Royalty Free Music supplied with the system can be remixed on your computer. Of course you can change the length and tempo, but more interestingly, there are up to 20 channels for each piece, with different instruments on each channel, so you can turn each instrument on or off, or change the volume, as wanted. Dancesoft of England has recently purchased the rights to the "engine" and will be producing a series of over 20 CD's of music for the system. Unfortunately, the company is unable to send a company representative as originally planned, but company President Aldo Baiocchi has donated a number of copies to be used as door prizes, and we will give a quick and simple demonstration of what the program does and how it works.

PG Music of Victoria, British Columbia, produces Band-in-a-Box, which we featured prominently at Wideangle '97, the 1997 Convention in Kitchener. While the program was billed as an "Automatic Accompaniment Program" for musicians who want to practice with a band, we recognized the opportunity to create music for our films and videos which would be free from copyright. There were two options available to us at that time: use only melodies in the Public Domain (arranged and played by Band-in-a-Box), or use music which was still under copyright, but mute the melody line (the copyrighted part) and replace it with soloist parts generated by the program. In either case, the arrangement of all the instruments playing rhythm, harmony, etc., was copyright free.
  Now there is a major improvement in the program. In Version 8.0 the program will generate original melodies in the style and tempo of your choice, complete with intro, chords, melody, arrangement and solo improvisations! With all the features now included you can quickly create original, copyright free music designed to fit exactly the mood, style, tempo, instrumentation, and length you need for virtually any scene! There will be a brief demonstration of this program and a chance to win a copy!