Traveling to California

I am traveling to California tomorrow, coming back home on the 22nd of September. I am attending IMTC board meeting in San Ramon, spending an afternoon in San Francisco on the 20th, a day in New York City on the 21st and then heading back home.

I’d love to meet and chat with companies and creators in the Internet TV and online video fields.

Feel free to drop me a line at kpravda@gmail.com

A Surprise in Paris

Last weekend I walked down the streets of Paris, near Place de la Concorde, and bumped into a Nazi soldier

At first I was shocked – either I drank too much, or it was possible to travel through time and space, or Europe has gone crazy again…
Much to my relief (I am Jewish after all…) I found myself standing in the middle of a historical movie set, taking place in occupied France. All around me were WWII cars, news stands, and people dressed in long coats and hats. It was surreal to see old army tracks and buses full of extras dressed up in 40’s fashion, only to get distracted by a modern day cars passing by.

I was also amazed to see the amount of equipment and staff that were on set, besides the actors. The scene was simple – two women meet at the entrance to a Metro station, and two sinister SS detectives follow them (nothing like long leather rain coats to get you typecasted)…
I counted 5 tracks of equipment, at least 30 people around the set, 2 cameras, projectors and loads of audio equipment. It made me think about how crazy all of us are, trying to create content on the cheap, as we are up against these huge productions.

For me it was an amazing experience – step into a different period in time, and see how much effort is invested in each film we see.
One of the extras told me it is the set of a film “The Lady in The Dark”. I didn’t find any info on it online – but it might be that there is only information in French, or that it is a working title. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Technorati Tags: Film, filmmaking, French Film, Lady in the dark, movie set

 

Traveler’s Best Friend

I’ve arrived yesterday to San Jose, and was greeted with a great weather and blue sky. I am traveling quite a lot these days, to Europe and US. Some of these trips are quite long – a trip from Israel to California takes at least 20 hours door to door, 15 hours in a plane.

If you travel a lot you probably know the exit row catch. Exit row has a great advantage – you can spread your legs as much as you want. But, the row is located at the baby seats area, where agitated parents are trying to get their little babies to sleep. Failure in doing so results in hours of crying babies, not the best travel atmosphere.

Well, I found the solution. I just bought myself a nice pair of Noise Canceling Headphones. My original thought was to use it for podcasts and audio monitoring of my video productions. I will sure use it for that. But quiet flight as I had is not something to be taken lightly 🙂

What are your traveling tips?

Next Week – At VON, SJ

I am heading next week to San Jose, attending Voice and Video over Net show on behalf of IMTC . I am participating in a panel on the 22nd of March with some great guys from Cisco, Radvision, Skype, Jabber and RealNetworks . I also look forward to hang out with Jeff and Chris from Pulvermedia/Network2.tv. If you are going to be there, feel free to drop me an email (kpravda-at-gmail.com).