Key Notes
Saturday October 6th - 7:30 - 8:45 AM - Breakfast Event - Arena
Glen Coffield
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Saturday October 6th - 11:30 - 1:00 PM - Luncheon Event - Arena
Mr. Chuck Littman
Mr. Charles Littman began working in the field of photography in 1957. Later at the University of Massachusetts (1962) he won the National Ansco Photography Contest.
His presenter in Boston was Dr. Edwin Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation and if you read the sr71.htm page, he was a pioneer of the super secret SR-71 Blackbird Aircraft of the CIA and later USAF.
After Mr. Littman had served two tours to South Vietnam and five consecutive tours to Southeast Asia as an USAF alert photographer; he was assigned to Honolulu, Hawaii. It was in 1976 that Dr. Land approached Mr. Littman with a role in the development of instant color photography.
Later, Mr.Littman's business name 'Supercolor of Hawaii' would be sold to Polaroid and to this day 'SUPERCOLORTM' is used extensively by Polaroid on all its marketing and product labeling. Polaroid and Mr. Littman formed still another joint venture in 1977; 'Mr. Camera' where they tested and developed instant 8 X 10 color portraits.
Mr. Littman's academic achievements in photography and electronic imaging continued at University of Nebraska , Air Force Institute of Technology (1965), Roosevelt University of Chicago (1966 & 74), Eastern Washington University (1985) and University of Delaware.
Even though he was a much decorated military veteran from 1965-1986. It was about 1986 while stationed at Hickam AFB Hawaii that MSgt Littman got a weekend job with a local wedding photographer that specialized in Japanese couples having a Hawaiian style traditional wedding. Of course at a photo studio, there is usually only One photographer, the owner and everyone else is his assistant, helper, secretary, limousine driver, lighting crew and etc. I was the 1st assistant and although sounding nice it was my job to look and dress formal and professional because I would take these three heavy metal contraptions the couples were now caring to the wedding... a Sony Betamax. There was the TV looking camera that was large and bulky and carried on the shoulder, then there was this portable tape machine and finally a power source that was heavy and had to lugged around. All of these were tethered together by a large bulky cable.
You were limited to how far you could go by the power cord that had to be plugged into an outlet as batteries did not exist yet. Maybe 15 to 20 feet tops...not much.
I can remember that as I was constantly hunting for wall outlets and later using outdoor orange power extensions. All of the recording both video and audio took place inside the hand carried recorder case, the camera head was 'dry' and just had a lens, a zoom and a focus ring (nothing was automatic yet either!).
In those days every little improvement was earth shaking news!
I remember one time being dispatched in the limousine to get some more video tape.
I hope a lot of you are reading this carefully...
I go into the store and ask - any one know about this new video recording tape.
Man steps forward and says he is JUST back from Minneapolis and a 3M seminar on magnetic recording tape.
I said does he have a 30 minute Betamax variety. He says, you don't want that. I said why? He said that it's too thin, and stay away from extra long and stick with the standard 20 minute version!
From that point on I NEVER trusted another so called expert about using Long Tape versions such as 180 minute Hi8 (1988) and 210 minute S-VHS (1990) and now swear by my 270 minute DV tapes (1999) Sony DV270ME2... This BetaMax was very awkward, heavy, attention getting or a Wedding distraction depending on who is involved here but, it produced very acceptable pictures on a common TV set.
It was quite a learning experience. A couple years later I was medically discharged.
Mr. Littman was therefore forced into disability retirement, but remains to this day an active consultant to the Pentagon on video through the aegis of the U.S. Army demonstration team 'Golden Knights,' the USAF ' Thunderbirds' and the US Navy 'Blue Angels,' where he helped pioneered the use of 8mm/Hi8mm & now Digital Video format videography as both a publicity tool and a pilots instant review and critique.
Mr. Littman has been retained in the past as a BETA tester with Sony, JVC, Panasonic, Sharp, NRG, Canon and Porter Case of South Bend, Indiana. Mr. Littman has spoke & lectured at national conventions, Videomaker Expos exhibitor, appeared at Videonics/ TDK road show, taught to various state agencies and the military across the country.
Currently Mr. Littman has been recognized as the father of a whole new branch of Video with his revolutionary "Cyber TV Studio in a Suitcase" concept of Real Time Video and the use of the radical procedure called 'Editing-On-The-Fly' technique whereby a completely edited tape is accomplished at the same time as the event occurs.
No Post Editing Is Required! He has posted almost the whole concept at a huge website called http://www.supervideo.com Right Next to the colored Spheres.
Mr. Littman is in the midst of developing an emerging technology that'll make civilian & military flying safer worldwide by the use of a very sophisticated electronic digital imagery system and an ingenious use of wireless digital real time video.
This concept has tremendous application against terrorism and In Flight Safety.
Mr. Littman is married to a senior international flight attendant, has two grown sons and currently resides in Hawaii, Chicago and Florida.