Free seminars - Join us at BVE 2011

If you are visiting BVE 2011 or The Production Show in London this week (Earl's Court 2 – 15-17 February), please come and say hello.

We'll be delivering our usual seminar (totally revised), Production on a budget, in the Production Theatre every morning at 10am – handy if you want to know which cameras you should have a look at later in the exhibition. We'll be talking about how to choose a camera for different budgets and for different types of production, and offering some tips on how to get the best from the technology. We will be putting up a pdf of the presentation after the first session on our main UrbanFox.tv website.

Also, on Tuesday, Christina will be telling How to survive as a freelancer (at 3pm in the Producer's Theatre – not the same place as our morning seminars), with advice on how to address such important aspects as getting paid, making a name for yourselves, and coping with taxes.

You won't need to pick up tickets for either session – just come along. Previously we've had lots of people standing at the back, or sitting on the floor, so it's probably worth coming early if you're interested (the picture above shows those who came early enough to get seats last year...).

There are many other worthwhile sessions available, free, in a load of seminar areas, although some will require you to queue up for tickets from the Seminar Registration desk (afternoon tickets can't be collected until after 12.30).

At the Production Theatre there will be sessions on multi-camera 3D, 3D commercials, file-based workflows, production management, shooting with a DSLR, and (at the end of each day) How to avoid becoming one of the 95% struggling Digital Film Makers from Den Lennie of F-Stop Academy.

At the Producer's Theatre there will be more on 3D (but aimed at producers), visual effects, getting programmes commissioned, casting, data workflow, drama production, and women in TV.

Also in the Production Show area is the Arri Production Skills Centre (which requires tickets), with sessions on the Arri Alexa, using filters, and lots on lighting, including Lighting on the Run and Energy Efficient Studio Lighting Techniques from the always enlightening Jonathan Harrison.

There is an even more extensive seminar programme at Broadcast Video Expo itself.

The 3D Revolution Programme (tickets required) includes sessions from such notable names as Phil Streather, CEO, Principal Large Format, Steve Schklair, CEO, 3ality Digital, and Chris Johns, Chief Engineer, BSkyB. There will be case studies, sessions on all aspects of 3D production and presentation, and a look at the future of 3D.

The Total Delivery Theatre (no tickets required) will look at IPTV, HTML5, Flash, mobile and online video. It will include a session on Thursday (13.30) by Rick Young, of Mac Video, on Broadcasting to the iPhone and iPad.

Broadcast Meets IT (tickets required) is aimed mainly at broadcasters, with many interesting and expert speakers on such topics as workflows, standards, cloud services, networking and infrastructure, Super-Hi Vision (Ultra HD), and several case studies.

The Audio Room (tickets required) will host a Radio Day on Tuesday, and over the following two days will look at such issues as sound recording, loudness measurement, workflows, wireless microphones, monitoring, audio over IP, and more.

The Post Production Theatre (tickets required), will have lots on 3D post, workflows, codecs, and where the industry is going (on Tuesday and Wednesday). On Thursday it will be devoted to Avid.

Sony's workshops will deal with: 3D Live Production; 35mm World; OLED Monitoring Technology; XDCAM File Based Acquisition; and Professional Audio.

Blackmagic Design will host DaVinci Resolve (colour grading) workshops, while Adobe's seminars will deal with all aspects of its CS5 suite (Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects, etc.).