Despite the record heat, a record crowd of about 230 forward-thinking filmmakers showed up promptly at six when the doors opened atTuesday’s Midwest Independent Film Festival to see Zacuto’s paradigm-shattering camera packages.
The centerpiece of the hands-on demo is the Panasonic HVX 200 HD camera with Zacuto’s exclusive accessories.
The HVX 200 will be shown in four different proprietary Zacuto configurations?Pro, Cine Studio and Docu?”which theoretically puts a filmmaker in the movie business,” said Steve Weiss, partner with Jens Bogehegn in Zacuto USA, formerly Zacuto Rentals.
The audience will immediately see the output of the HVX 200 demo on the big theatre screen, said MWFF’s Michael Kwielford. “We’ll show content made during the demo, plus a trailer for a feature, a music video, a short film and two commercials shot with the HVX 200.”
What makes this demo the most important one of the year is the seismic change in moviemaking it represents.
Six months ago, the partners saw the future and it was very small?but with a huge potential.
Realizing that the new small HD cameras would change the rental market, the partners decided to embrace these little brothers of the Varicam and F900.
Over a year ago, when they first caught wind of the HVX200’s emergence, they asked two hard questions. Where will all of the accessories (monitor, hard drives, wireless units, transmitters, matte boxes, follow focuses, hand grips, shoulder pads, etc.) go on the camera, and how will we power all of these items?
The Zacuto response was the development of their seminal product, the Universal Studio Baseplate System. It allows for the mounting of accessories and works with every prosumer camera on the market.
$1 million investment pays off big
Weiss and Bogehegn invested $1 million in the design and manufacture of some 35 different accessory products, which are fabricated at two large suburban machine shops.
Since February, when the new Zacuto USA line was introduced via their website, the company recouped its investment, tripled its sales and reports business is soaring non-stop.
