• The Real D. Joshua Greer, President and Founder of Real D, and one of the more inspirational and impressive entrepeneurs I’ve met in a long while, gave us a jaw dropping demo on the current – and future – state of 3D Cinema Technology, including never to be publically seen clips from a 3D converted KUNG FU PANDA and sneak previews of ALIEN vs. MONSTERS.  There is no zealot like a convert, and I’m now convinced – like James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzerberg before me – that 3D is the future of cinema.I don’t think – as some cinema owners do – that this will be the saviour of cinema, because Home 3D is only a few years away – but I do think that if the technology continues to improve at the rate it has over the past few years, it will become ubiquitous. The function of cinema is to transport, entertain and inspire and making the experience more fully immersive and overwhelming can only serve that. When will slingshot make its first 3D film, I hear you ask? Watch this space….I had a chat with Joshua afterwards and the cost implications are not as prohibitive as one might think.
  
• A fascinating overview of the global TV markets from the perspective of an American Studio, given by the formidable, lovely and impressive Belinda Menendez who I am quite prepared to believe is every bit as powerful as her lisitings suggest.
• Seeing an independent in ascendance – through an exhilarating session with Lionsgate’s founder Michael Paseornek who has shown that it is possible to challenge the Studios on their own ground – if not quite at their own game.

There were many other great moments also over the past week that I haven’t recorded here. So here is quick numerical summary of all that has gone on in this past week:

• 5 days of non-stop meetings, generally starting at 0800 and finishing at 1900 on the early days, with most days going on to evening events.
• A total of 49 speakers or panelists, across 25 sessions, comprising a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of hollywood, going through the entire value chain from writers, agents, managers, lawyers, producers, financiers, analysts, marketeers, home entertainment, television, technologists, directors, executives, sales agents, acqusitions people, and then a few more lawyers and agents.
• Visits to six studio lots (and too many photos of us underneath every Studio sign)
• Thousands of questions and debate
• Hundreds of miles criss-crossing LA in our mini-bus, driven by the every cheery and always punctual Jerry
• An endless meringue of organisational navigation, expertyly handled by our Programme Director Julia Short of Verve Pictures, our redoubtable Programme Organizer Tor Lorkin Lange and our own hero, the only man ever to truly build a pan-european studio, Michael Kuhn, all of whom did an amazing job and to all of whom we owe our thanks.

All of this has added up, for me and I know all my fellow IPs 2008, to an unforgettable and potentially career and even life-changing week. Our eyes have been opened and we have seen the promised land. The week was exhillarating, exhausting, challenging and yes, enourmous fun

Quick sidebar: I got a bizzare email this week from someone concerned that my blog was making the trip seem *too much* fun. Whilst its hard to see how going on a trip to the mecca of your industry and meeting the gliterati of Hollywood with a group of your peers could be anything but fun, I’m hoping this account makes clear that it was the type of fun that happens when your mind is expanded to the possibilities of the universe and you are challenged to respond accordingly. Not the type where you’ve had too many shots of vodka-jello on a girls-gone-wild video. Although admittedly there was perhaps *one* night where both those categories of fun started to collide….

For me the trip came at a perfect point as 3 years and 4 movies into the slingshot journey we plan the next steps for us as a team. To be given an overview of the studios just at a point where economic and technological shifts of such a dramatic, tectonic variety are occurring in the ground beneath their feet was nothing short of inspiring, and I am looking forward to taking this learning back to team-sling in blighty and see us rise to the new world order that is to come.

For now though, I’m taking a week of holiday. My first this year and much needed. I’ve retreated to Northern California, writing this at a friends beach house overlooking the ocean and I’ll hope you’ll forgive me if I now sign off from blog duty for a little while.

It’s been unreal. And real. The real deal.

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