Graphic arts gets a big showing at Digital Media Festival
The festival was staged by industry trade publication Digital Media World, bringing leading personalities from the global digital arts community to the Darling Harbour Convention Centre to present on a number of disciplines - including visual effects, animation, games design, digital video production, photography and digital imaging.
Speakers at the festival included industry players from major special effects houses like Weta and ILM, who performed work on upcoming summer blockbusters like Narnia, Harry Potter and King Kong. The other main attraction of the show was the exhibition floor itself, featuring contributions from familiar names in graphic arts like Kayell, Epson, HP and Eizo.
Imaging distributor Kayell Australia in particular had a powerful presence on the exhibition floor, holding court in the Digital Imaging Zone and accounting for one of the largest stands at the festival. The company was showing off products from Epson, Canon and Eizo among others.
Richard Smith (pictured right), product manager at Epson, was on hand to preach the image quality of its Stylus Pro range of digital inket wide-format printers. The machines are suitable for graphic design, photography, prepress and fine art prints, and its top-end Stylus Pro 9800 was on show alongside a mini gallery of photographic reproductions.
“Those within the animation industry look to the Stylus range for proofing, and we've had a lot of visits from professional photographers, increasing amounts of whom are looking to set up mini labs at home,” says Smith.
“The growing popularity of digital inkjet machines in photographic reproduction is all about giving photographers control over their livelihood.”
Theo Eleftheriades, digital colour integrator at Kayell Australia, was showing off the Eizo range of monitors. The hardware was of particular interest to the animators present at the festival because of its high-end video capabilities, while the CG220 model is geared for prepress and proofing.
(From left: Matthew Bauer from Eizo with Theo Eleftheriades from Kayell Australia)
“The CG220 boasts the revolutionary Adobe RGB, and its colour gamut is wider than many CRTs and any other LCD screen available,” says Eleftheriades. “We're seeing these monitors being picked up by publishing houses, for use on magazines like Marie Claire for example, and you're not going to see a colour match as good as that with any other brand.”
IT giant HP also made the trip to the Digital Media Festival, hawking its range of workstations for animation production and also showing off its Designjet 90 printer. Jeremy Brew (pictured right), manager at print supplier PT Store, says members of the animation industry are increasingly looking to inkjet machines for storyboarding purposes and hard copy 3D visualisations.
“Traditionally the main markets for such printers are graphic design, photography and proofing, but we are increasingly seeing a crossover into the animation industry,” says Brew. “Animators are wanting to fit more onto their story boards, which makes a good fit for the printer's A2 capabilities, and the market for those seeking hardcopy 3D visualisations is huge.”
Richard Smith (pictured right), product manager at Epson, was on hand to preach the image quality of its Stylus Pro range of digital inket wide-format printers. The machines are suitable for graphic design, photography, prepress and fine art prints, and its top-end Stylus Pro 9800 was on show alongside a mini gallery of photographic reproductions. 
Theo Eleftheriades, digital colour integrator at Kayell Australia, was showing off the Eizo range of monitors. The hardware was of particular interest to the animators present at the festival because of its high-end video capabilities, while the CG220 model is geared for prepress and proofing. 
IT giant HP also made the trip to the Digital Media Festival, hawking its range of workstations for animation production and also showing off its Designjet 90 printer. Jeremy Brew (pictured right), manager at print supplier PT Store, says members of the animation industry are increasingly looking to inkjet machines for storyboarding purposes and hard copy 3D visualisations.