Into The Wild With Bob Poole: The Venice Unveiling

Hall of Fame ended on a much higher note than it had started with, and that is saying something. The last day of Hall of Fame, Sony (Yes, the electronic brand SONY!) came to campus with a very special guest and a great announcement. Without question, this was one of the most popular and crowded sessions, if not the most popular, among all sessions throughout the week.

Scott Dansby, Director of Industry Relations, started the session introducing Sony and Sony’s long running relationship with Full Sail. He then went on to introduce the crowd to Katsunori Yamanouchi, President of Sony Professional Solutions (USA), and Peter Crithari, Marketing Manager of Sony Professional Solutions Group who both expressed their amazement at the campus facilities. They also congratulated the campus and the students for the achievements.

Shortly after, Crithari introduced the special guest Bob Poole to the stage following an introductory video that hyped the students up.

Bob Poole, an Emmy award winning, exceptionally accomplished Wildlife cinematographer and filmmaker, had a special presentation for the students in which he shared some of his experiences in Africa throughout his filmmaking career. He took the students through some “rough” adrenaline pumping adventures coupled with hair straightening photos and videos showcasing his work. He also shared different techniques he uses to capture a wide range of subjects in unusual locations. He showed some photos of his low-tech, high functioning gears that he uses while shooting in the wild; heavy metal frames for his Land Rover that would serve as mounts for his cameras and would occasionally protect him from wild elephants, camouflage tents with a hole for the lenses in which he would spend majority of his days while shooting the crocodiles were some ingenious tools that he used in the past. He had brought along a trailer for his most recent work for NatGeo Wild “Man Among Cheetahs”, and footage from three short films on elephants, crocodiles and lions as which were all accompanied by gasps and moans from the attendees.

Pic: Bob Poole presentation.

This section of this session was followed by some Q and A with the students. The students were barely out of the adventure mode when it was time for the big announcement from Sony. A covered object on the center of the stage was about to be unveiled and the excitement in the auditorium was hard to be contained at this point.

All the guests from Sony, along with Garry Jones, President of Full Sail University revealed the veiled object that was also a present from Sony, their latest High-End Motion Picture 6K Full Frame camera named Venice.

This reveal had the excitement level of the auditorium pushed to another level. The session ended with Crithari promising the students hands on experience on the latest equipment in the very near future.

As important as this event was for Full Sail University and it’s students, it was also an indication of the Hall of Fame coming to an end. The students started filing out of the venue as the energy of the whole week had started to settle down. It was time for life to come back to normal at Full Sail after all, classes are important, studies are important; the week with industry professionals was a huge boost and motivation that students needed, and so, as the students dispersed from the venue and the event, the opes were that student would get back to work with a boosted ethic and also with the end in mind.