With brilliant thinkers both in and outside the box, SMPTE is the industry's leading nonprofit association and is an accredited industry standards-setting body. It provides technology education and information to the motion imaging industry. At the helm is a more than capable woman who has the honor of guiding the organization during its Centennial Year.
Barbara H. Lange, SMPTE’s current executive director, once served as staff director of product management and business development for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the world's largest technical association. At IEEE, which has more than 385,000 members worldwide and annual revenues of $350 million, Lange most recently was responsible for managing online subscription products with revenues in excess of $150 million, including digital periodicals, conference proceedings, standards, e-books, education products, and certification publications. On behalf of SMPTE, she accepted the esteemed Philo T. Farnsworth Award by the Television Academy at 2015’s 66th Primetime Emmy® Engineering Awards Ceremony, during the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Lange holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and German from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA.
I had the honor and privilege of covering the Centennial Event, complete with covering the Red Carpet! Honorary SMPTE Membership was awarded to James Cameron, while SMPTE’s Progress Medal went to none other than Douglas Trumbull.
I was lucky enough to speak to several of the SMPTE luminaries as they strode up the aisle. The suave and
debonair John O’Hurley – an award-winning actor, host, composer, and writer - and lifelong dog lover – who wrote “It's OK to Miss the Bed on the First Jump” as well as “Before Your Dog Can Eat Your Homework, First You Have to Do It,” was J. Peterman on Seinfeld, 'King Neptune' in SpongeBob SquarePants and was even on Broadway in ‘Chicago’ … a charming man!
James Cameron - The man, the myth, the legend… he received honorary membership, SMPTE’s highest honor, in recognition of his work advancing visual effects, motion capture, and stereoscopic 3D photography – as well as for his experimentation in higher frame rates. He’s behind a lot of the “movie magic” of today – his cinematography ideas have resulted in complex special effects (SFX) algorithms for object transformations, underwater filming methods, original approaches for computer graphic motion capture, stereoscopic capture, projection techniques, and experimentation in higher frame rates (HFR) — all enhancing and advancing the movie-going experience in a way that further immerses
SMPTE 100 Conference Review