PERG had a great turnout for the breakfast held on Saturday morning before the CineGear show opened. Over 100 PERG members and guests attended the breakfast, which was held at a café across the street from Paramount Studios on the Raleigh Studios lot. A full breakfast was served along with espresso drinks. With people’s time freed up by the writer’s strike, the CineGear show was very well attended. Thirty-three of our members exhibited at the show, and many more were in attendance.
PERG’s in-person networking events like the Cine Gear Breakfast are great opportunities for the rental community to get together and discuss ideas that would help the rental community. Very often it starts by a company owner or rental manager expressing something that would help their company, and it turns out to be an idea that would help the rental community generally.
We started 2023 with the Duclos Lens Tech Training events, which came about because many rental houses voiced the difficulty in hiring qualified Lens Technicians—there’s simply a world-wide shortage. The training, created by Matthew Duclos, and produced in partnership with Gary Adcock of Filmscape Chicago, was hugely popular and will be repeated in an ongoing effort to bring more technicians into our industry.
In March we presented a PERG Coffee Break about sustainable practices for rental companies and productions, which led to the Coffee Breaks on generators (see full story in this issue).
Another idea raised at CineGear (and other times) was arranging user group meetings regarding tricks and workarounds for users of a particular popular rental software. Putting a user group together and scheduling some meeting times was easy because, based on PERG’s 2021 Software Survey, we quickly identified the rental companies who all shared the same questions and challenges. We reached out to the software developer and came up with a format for the constructive exchange of strategies and experiences. That meeting will be scheduled soon.
Another idea from a member was facilitating training sessions on calibrating production monitors (software platforms, and instruments like spectroradiometers and colorimeters). As of this writing we are coordinating with Creative Solutions (Small HD), Sony, and Flanders Scientific to set up the sessions. The sessions will be recorded and added to a growing library of YouTube resources for our members.
So, thanks for sharing your ideas and concerns. Following up on these suggestions leads to closer industry relationships; new initiatives, events, and training; and more concrete benefits for members. Every new avenue leads the association in a direction that continues to grow and evolve thereafter. PERG is guided under the direction of the PERG Council, a terrific collegial group, made up mostly of rental company owners and principles, as well as representatives from manufacturing and insurance. They know a good idea when they see it. We invite those who care about our industry to reach out any time and share your thoughts with a member of the Council or with the PERG Manager or ESTA staff.
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