HP is displaying their Digital Content Creation Workstations in the New Frontier on Main. Here is a collection of photos of the ongoings over the past couple of days.

You can also keep up with HP managers and their experiences at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in their Backstage at Sundance 2007 Blog. more

At New Frontier on Main, one of the earliest adopters of Sony XDCAM HD PDW-F350, Robin Berg of Berg Entertainment is sharing his footage, experience, and workflow using the camera in brutal weather (22ft. boats and 6ft.-7 ft. seas, etc.) for his new documentary Speargun Hunter. Berg, who is a prolific regular on the Outdoor Channel, shot worldwide with the F350 XDCAM HD and intercut with underwater footage shot on the Z1. (More on that in a minute, and it‘s interesting.)

Berg first saw the XDCAM HD at the behest of Outdoor Channel president Andy Dale. “From my standpoint, as someone who has to oversee all areas of production–pre production, field production, post–I realized instantly how powerful the workflow could be,” Berg recalls. “The price point is exceptional and the quality we were going to be able to deliver was remarkable.” more

At New Frontier on Main:
10am Dreamweaver
1pm After Effects
3pm Photoshop

The classes are taught in a professional working environment with HP xw4400 workstations, flatscreen monitors and the latest versions of the software.

Independent filmmaker Jacob Rosenberg is sharing his wealth of experience with Premiere Pro in the Adobe/HP hands on session at New Frontier on Main. Under Rosenberg’s tutalage, participants are getting a chance to test drive Adobe Creative Suite 2/Production Studio on HP xw4400 Workstations. He’ll no doubt cover new Production Suite features you might have heard of such as Cliff Notes and Dynamic Link–and if he doesn’t you can ask him about it after. more

Right after the opening press conference, the crowd crossed the street to the New Frontier on Main venue for the opening reception. Over the past several years, this venue became the place to see demos of digital production tools, panel discussions on technical topics, various filmmaking workshops, and the online shorts festival.

Last year, the venue got classy lighting and décor. This year it has changed even more dramatically, with a DJ, a Krups coffee bar and video art installations mixed among the technology demos, panels and workshops. It also has a mission: Sundance describes it as a place that “celebrates the convergence of film and art as an emerging hotbed for new ideas and experimentation.” At the reception, Redford talked about artists who were using new technology and the moving image to explore new concepts of narrative structure. more

In line with the journalists at the Egyptian for the official opening press conference–Robert Redford, Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the festival and Brett Morgan, director of the 2007 opening documentary film Chicago 10, various jurors, etc. are promised.

In the meantime, on the camera sighting front, outside the theater it‘s France 4 TV with a HDV camcorder–new technology for the station. Local Salt Lake City CBS affiliate KUTV is here with Panasonic DVCPRO, but looking at a corporate driven move to tapeless workflow this year; P2 perhaps, though XDCAM HD looks like a strong contender for that transition. Nothing specific on the record, but it struck me as significant to see a local station going tapeless as part of a wider corporate move and not at the end of a trickle down process. CNN on hand with the ever-reliable Digibeta, but of course CNN is also a leader in tapeless workflow, so technology there will no doubt continue to change.

Back in a few with the press conference and the opening of the New Frontiers center.