The British Society of Cinematographers’ expo, which took place this past weekend, is not traditionally a place of headline releases and crowds of enthusiastic camera people baying for a sight of the latest toy. Is it a relatively small show. Previously, it’s been confined to a stage or two at either Pinewood or Leavesden, but was ejected this year, presumably by the brisk business going on at U.K. studios, to the Battersea Evolution exhibition facility in central London. Reaching beyond its scale, though, the event has long maintained an audience at the higher end of the U.K.’s somewhat polarised film industry, in which the expensive and the less-expensive are separated by a rather under-represented middle ground.
As such, there has never been any doubt as to who the BSC Expo is aimed at, and one side effect of this is that there is generally no great excitement over the prospect of a previously unheard-of camera because most of the attendees can be counted upon to recognize that while the toys are important, other things are just as much so. Sony, Panasonic and ARRI were all in attendance, and while AJA also took a booth, Blackmagic, perhaps with an eye to their core market, stayed away. These choices represent a microcosm of the show, with Panasonic’s imminent Varicam announcement perhaps the closest thing to a buzz-creator in terms of new equipment (and that based on effectively no information).
One of the advantages of a small show with a discerning clientele is that the many small firms on whose work the industry so often depends enjoy a comparatively higher profile. Companies such as True Lens Services, the optical engineers, and Photon Beard, a stalwart of British lighting manufacturing, are not lost in the noise of the latest mass-market, pocket-sized helmet-cam. True Lens Services produces both extensively re-engineered lenses for high-end camera departments and more affordable modifications of stills lenses for the less-well-heeled, both of which options seem set for continued importance given the plummeting cost of cameras yet stubbornly high cost of lenses to suit them. Photon Beard was happy to discuss sales of its Platinum Blonde (a traditional Blonde open-faced light fitted with a 1200W HMI) to U.S. customers, representing a sought-after expansion of the company’s involvement in American production.
Really, though, these things are asides – trade shows at their best are about personal interaction, and the BSC Expo has always been careful to provide a large, central seating area with considerably better food and drink than most exhibitions. It’s easy to walk around wondering whether some key equipment choice for an upcoming tenant of Pinewood’s massive Bond stage, or some crucial bit of problem-solving for an existing production, is being discussed in a brief interpersonal aside.