HPA TO HONOR POST VETERAN RON BURDETT
For over 25 years, he headed up post house Sunset Digital, known as a technically-expert and creatively-powerful company, with contributions to a number of Academy Award- and Emmy-winning projects.
Sunset was a pioneer in the development of film mastering and restoration, and played a leading and early role in the authoring and encoding of DVDs, eventually creating DVDs for hundreds of theatrical releases. A number of defining post production developments also took place at Sunset, including new digital restoration tools and techniques, mastering for digital cinema, and in fact the model of cinematographer/director focused digital film mastering, which led directly to today's creative digital intermediate workflows.
Burdett was also a founding member of the HPA and played a leading role in the creation and growth of its predecessor organization, The International Teleproduction Society (ITS). In addition to serving as president of the Southern California Chapter of the ITS, Burdett became the president of the international organization at a critical time in the industry. As ITS president, he helped to create worldwide awareness of the issues of post production and helped to drive an agenda that focused on the business, creative and technological issues of our industry.
Leon Silverman, president of HPA notes, "Ron Burdett has epitomized the entrepreneurial spirit of innovation and forward thinking that helped to define our modern post production industry. His leadership skills in helping to create a vibrant post production community as well as his contributions to technical excellence and creativity cannot be overstated."