Coppola Does SIM2

Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola divides his time these days between making wine at his Rubicon vineyard in Napa Valley, California and making movies. He acquired the large vineyard, formerly owned by the Inglenook brand, over several decades as the land became available. It was at this facility that SIM2 Multimedia conducted the recent launch of a new advertising campaign featuring Coppola's endorsement of SIM2 DLP projectors.

A large contingent of the press was brought in for the event, and in a brief discussion, plus Q&A, Coppola showed himself to be a real enthusiast of digital filmmaking. Early in the digital era he discovered SIM2 projectors and since then has used them extensively in his productions.

Celebrity endorsements of consumer electronic products aren't new, of course. But while SIM2's Pordenone, Italy home base surely did nothing to detract from Coppola's admiration for the company, his expressed respect for its products appeared to be a genuine reflection of the image quality they provide--a quality he needs for his work.

No new projectors were announced at the event. Most of the attendees were in the so-called trade press, who often devote more space to marketing concepts and other business affairs than to product. For those of us more concerned with the latter, however, a slideshow of SIM2 models ran silently in the background during the presentation--without comment. One of those designs was the C3X LUMIS 3D, a combination of two of SIM2's 3-chip DLP projectors which when used together with a special mounting assembly and proper synchronization can produce a 3D image. Somehow we suspect that 3D (hopefully from a single projector) will be the big story at next September's CEDIA EXPO in Atlanta--from SIM2 and other projector manufacturers as well.

Coppola expressed mixed feelings about 3D. His concerns centered mainly on the need for special glasses. When he saw Avatar in IMAX, he often removed them in scenes with little depth. When widely displaced images signaled an upcoming sequence with obvious 3D content, however, he put the glasses back on!

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