HPA Tech Retreat 2025 Releases First Program Details for the 30th Anniversary of the Influential Event

05/12/2024

The highly-anticipated 2025 Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Tech Retreat will celebrate three decades of influence this year, with an extensive schedule of activities and an exceptional round-up of experts and presentations. Registration is open for the Retreat which takes place February 16 to 20, 2025, at the Westin Rancho Mirage Golf Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage, California. For three decades, the HPA Tech Retreat has been known for its in-depth and inventive approach to covering the critical topics facing the media creation industry. The Retreat is an uncommon gathering of thought leaders, technology trendsetters and creatives who gather in a non-marketing setting to discuss and explore the most important topics that face the industry during 4-plus days of sessions, roundtable discussions, conversation and technology demonstrations.

The HPA Tech Retreat consistently sells out well in advance of the event and registration is expected to reach capacity quickly; securing a spot is highly recommended. Attendance is strictly capped to foster an atmosphere that promotes discussion, debate, and connection.

Over the carefully curated days, Retreat programming takes on areas of crucial interest to the industry: TR-X (Monday) will focus on Affordable Production, Supersession (Tuesday) for which details will be announced shortly, and Wednesday and Thursday's program, detailed here. The complete schedule is available here.

Mark Schubin has been a guiding vision of HPA Tech Retreat programming for more than 20 years. As ever, he brought his knowledge and unique perspective to the program, commenting, There are topics that make us pace the floor. As they always do, things in our industry are changing, and there's concern and interest in that change. We got more submissions than ever this year and the committee was impressed with not just the number, but the sheer quality of those submissions. Of course, AI is a consistent thread, but there is so much more, voices from the music industry and live events, sports, pure explorations of storytelling, business cases and cloud workflows all showed up. There was an abundance of riches. Reading these proposals is an honest behind-the-curtain view of what is happening in our industry and from those, we've come up with what I think is a bang-up program.

HPA Tech Retreat programming opens on the morning of Monday, February 17th, as the doors open for the Innovation Zone and the Welcome Brunch. TR-X follows in the afternoon. Details for the HPA Supersession, set for Tuesday, February 18, will be announced shortly.

Sessions for Wednesday and Thursday's program include the following:

Wednesday, February 19

What CES 2025 Means for the Media Industry

Mark Harrison, DPP

What do CTOs really think? Key findings from the DPP Media CTO Survey

Mark Harrison and Rowan de Pomerai, DPP

Deploying an UltraHD Broadcast Experience Through HDR and SDR Infrastructures

Moderator: Michael Zink, LG Electronics and the Ultra HD Forum, Bill Baggelaar, UHD Alliance, Annie Chang, Universal Pictures

Joshua Pines Opines

Josh Pines, Picture Shop

Is the industry sitting on an AI goldmine or a ticking time bomb?

Rich Welsh, Deluxe

How entrepreneurs can successfully launch, fund, and grow a start-up tech company in the M&E sector utilizing advanced technologies including AI

Moderator: Ethan Jacks, MediaBridge Capital Advisors

Behind the Screens: Pushing The Boundaries of Live Entertainment at Sphere

Moderator: Jonathan Martin, WEKA

Live Event Tech: Tours, Festivals & Residencies - IMAG to Streaming

Moderator: Mark Chiolis, Mobile TV Group

Jim Toten

Jeff Carman

Olympics Open and Coverage 2024: Advancing Live Production Technology

Renard Jenkins, I2A2 Technologies, Studios & Labs

AI in Live Sports Production: IBM and Wimbledon's Sustainable Tech Revolution

Barbara Lange, Kibo121

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment's Journey in Adopting Video Foundation Models for Content Creation

Ryan Khurana,MLSE, & Travis Couture, Twelve Labs

Harnessing Gen AI to Elevate Accessibility, Inclusivity, and Compliance in Media, Entertainment and Sports

Carin Forman, AWS

Re-Thinking Fast Turnaround Workflows for the Cloud

Chris Swan, AWS UK

Transforming Archives into Active Content Libraries: Unlocking the Potential of Legacy Media

Moderator: Soyoung Lee, Twelve Labs, Heidi Shakespeare, Memnon Archive Services

Thursday, February 20

Navigating the New Normal: Production Trends and Industry Shifts in TV and Film

Alex LoVerde, ProdPro

AI Was Not the Great Disrupter

Moderator: John Footen, Deloitte Consulting, Jason Williamson, Deloitte Consulting, Seth Hallen

Love Hurts - But It Doesn't Have to in the Cloud!

Moderator: Annie Chang, Universal Pictures

Harmonizing Virtual Production and Visual Effects

Mathieu Mazerolle, Foundry

Understanding the Threat Landscape of AI workflows in Localization, Digital Film, and Dubbing

Mathew Gilliat-Smith, Convergent DS , Ben Stanbury, The Walt Disney Studios, Keith Ritlop, ConvergentDS (formerly Disney, NBCU, Fox)

Standards, SMPTE, and ISO

Sally-Ann D'Amato , SMPTE, Thomas Bause Mason, SMPTE, Renard Jenkins, I2A2 Technologies, Studios & Labs, Andy Maltz, General Intelligence

From Stone Age to Screen Age: The Epic Tale of Visual Storytelling

Seth Hallen and Alan Lasky

AI Applications in Media Workflows

Moderator: Thomas True, NVIDIA

Bridging the Uncanny Valley: Artificial Individual Intelligence (Aii)

Dave Ginsberg and Jerry Rees, Artificial Individual Intelligence

Shaping Stories with Media Intelligence: From Search to Storytelling

Morgan Prygrocki, Adobe

How do I deal with all these live streams?

Chris Lennon, Ross Video

Media Cyber Security and Trust

Hans Hoffmann, European Broadcasting Union

Vid2Vec: the First AI-Driven Narrative Gra

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