By Debra Kaufman
At last year's HPA Tech Retreat, the Supersession was all about The Lost Lederhosen, a daylong filmmaking experiment focusing on cloud-based technologies, ultimately resulting in an 11-minute short film. Joachim JZ Zell, who developed the concept, wrote the script, gathered the team and produced it, is back for another Supersession at this year's HPA Tech Retreat. In concert with co-producer Mark Chiolis, Zell is producing The Found Lederhosen (working title), which builds on the premise of last year's endeavor of using cloud-based technologies for as many tasks as possible - and even brings back actors Barbara Wilder (as Heidi) and John Baumgaertner (as Festmeister Hans).
But that's where the similarities end. It's a different starting point, says Zell. Last year, the locations were all in Palm Springs and Hollywood. This year, we have filmmakers on different continents, each telling different stories with different actors and different cultural aspects. For this production, the cutting-edge cloud technologies will enable productions on four continents: North America (Hollywood and Mexico City); Europe (London and Vilnius, Lithuania); Australia (Brisbane) and Asia (Dubai and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia). Each filmmaker in each location will create a script of how artists survive the global COVID-19 lockdown, explains Zell. Each location will have different cultural aspects, but global trade, amazingly, helps everyone get their hands on the latest, greatest technology.
Zell and Chiolis first found supervisors for core studio functions, bringing on board Sony/Audio's Adam Levin as audio supervisor and Arjun Ramamurthy as VFX supervisor. Zell took on the role of post production supervisor. After contacting filmmakers around the world, teams from the various locations firmed up. The only guideline was to implement local COVID restrictions and create a story where global COVID lockdown is somehow part of it. Although all the regional films are still in production, Zell drops hints of how different they will all be. In Dubai, the story will be set among the Bedouin; in London, the story focuses on a painter, a singer and a dancer and how they stay motivated. In Mexico City, we see skateboarders navigating the city's empty streets. In addition to these stories, Origin Point, which grew out of RED's in-house production company, will be making a behind-the-scenes documentary with footage from around the globe.
For the Supersession, Zell and Chiolis will highlight different aspects of each production We'll pick the most impressive technology for each site and focus on that, to keep it exciting, says Zell. If a specific product was used on all the productions, it will only be showcased in one of the productions. For each short production, attendees will see a two-minute clip, paired with the documentary footage. But for audience members that want to take a deeper dive, says Zell, each production will have links to see, for example, how every production was edited or handled with VFX. There is an unlimited stream of information we'll make available, he notes.
Each region will create its own cloud-based workflows within the overall framework, but they'll have lots of participating technology vendors to choose from. The winners and honorable mentions of this year's HPA Engineering Awards were invited to participate, which brought EIZO, Eluvio, Moxion, Frame.io, Teradek and Sohonet on board. Other technologies that will be involved in the making of the productions include Blackmagic Design Ursa, RED Komodo, ARRI Alexa, Sony Venice, Evercast, Panavision, Samara, Resolve, Nuke, Colorfront, and Baselight. HPA is about technology, says Zell. All these companies are strong partners and the cloud makes it available to everyone.
For streaming, the productions rely on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Editing solutions are both Avid and Adobe. Teradici and BeBop help interface two machines in the cloud, and Frame.io and Teradek are showing management of remote streaming data, with 5th Kind configuring the streaming workflow in Mexico City. Brisbane used Moxion and QTake to monitor content and process instant dailies.
Working behind the scenes will be local editors, colorists and sound and VFX professionals, with some of them available for remote work for other productions. In Australia, Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS will be the consulting cinematographer as will Steve Yedlin, ASC for Hollywood. Colorist Greg Fisher at Company 3 in London is also involved, as well as Skywalker Sound.
The Supersession itself will be interactive, with attendees able to attend virtual breakfast roundtables and convene in breakout rooms. In referring to the HPA Awards ceremony as a model for how the Supersession will run, Zell notes, the HPA core team does an amazing job to bring us the correct platform to create the most interactive solution possible. He adds that this year's Supersession isn't simply about showing off cloud and remote technologies. In 10 years, hopefully, this period we're going through will be history, he says. But let's document what the situation is that we're in now - how artists survived and how technology made it possible.
The HPA Tech Retreat Supersession will be presented on February 23 and February 24 from 10 am to 1 pm.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
12/06/2026
Meet The Grumpy Onion Ireland's newest online sensation, all he wants is to ...
12/06/2026
RT stays Up All Night with brand new daily 2026 FIFA World Cup Vodcast
Adding to the fun around 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, RT has launched a brand new d...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
By Debra Kaufman
