A NEW HOPE: THE PANDEMIC’S IMPACT IS STILL BEING FELT ON A VARIETY OF PIPELINES – PRODUCTION, SUPPLY, PARTS, ETC. BUT DEVELOPMENT/ INNOVATION HAS NEVER BEEN HIGHER. BY PAULINE ROGERS There was some qualified hope in the air when ICG Magazine released its 2020 Product Guide last August. Despite the world’s biggest trade shows – NAB and Cine Gear among them – going virtual, production had tentatively started to resume (under strict COVID-19 safety protocols). And the new products that would have been introduced at shows like NAB managed to show up on the magazine’s radar, with creative minds ready to put them to use. But all that hopeful energy became diffused as the sustained intensity of a global pandemic forced many manufacturers to close their doors. The upside was the time to re-focus on the design and development of new technology. But, with the global supply chain hammered by COVID-19, as well as the impact on digital chipmakers, the situation appears to have worsened. As Andrew Ng at Creative Solutions explains: “Manufacturers found themselves working around the clock trying to make a new product, but finding the suppliers and sources and getting them was a challenge. Then, if they worked, they would have to be validated. With sometimes secondary choices in parts, the failure rate goes up, and the supply chain breaks down, pushing the engineers.” That meant that a great new lens, light or camera in the design phase, would not get prototyped, tested, refined, or industry-ready if vendors could not get parts. All this made a significant impact on how to present ICG Magazine’s annual Product Guide, with the result of reaching out to vendors, users, and technical gurus to see what trends are guiding the production landscape circa late 2021.
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