[Lawsmith]

What a fantastic experience! What a privilege to be involved in something as significant as this. Both my wife and I arrived in Vegas with very little expectations of what would happen, but we were hoping the experience would be worth the time and expense we had committed to this endeavor. Our expectations were definitely fulfilled beyond anything we had imagined, and I am not talking about the swag we received. The information and the dialogue running throughout the affair is what we were impressed by.
First, the organizational efforts put in by Ron Epstein, et.al., is what held the affair together and made enjoying the events so effortless. My thoughts on the individual parts of the program, including one glaring problem which is the only thing keeping me from jumping off my couch and writhing in a religious fervor at the memories of the EMA 2007, I shall attempt to delineate below.

1. Most of the HTF forums were put together well and all of them offered good content, but some were definitely better than others. The opening meeting was marred only by the fact that it was hosted by the "suits." By way of full disclosure, my background is heavily involved with theater, and I have a degree in Film and Theater (Director's Emphasis). I have put together more than a few presentations over the years for various organizations. There is nothing worse than dragging out the "suits" and having them attempt to be anything other than what they are, which is usually fairly dry business guys. No amount of reading prepared texts and trying to pass them off as extemporaneous witty repartee is going to mask the fact that some have the personality for stage presentations and some do not. That doesn't mean you can't have them present anything, just present them in a setting for which they are suited. (no pun intended) Most of the presenters here were die hard suits, and when one or two of them broke out of that mold and presented themselves with some sort of stage aplomb, it was a very welcome relief.
The worst offender of all of all the presentation devices is the scripted "non-scripted" conversation which raised it's scaly head several times during the opening meeting. When this happens, it is very difficult for me to get through to the meat of the message because I am so distracted by the artifice. Enough said on this topic.
Of course, the meeting really came alive for me when the "G-4" guy came out and took over the conversation with the "power users." Here the dialogue became much more interesting for me because I was at least hearing an attempt to truly get at the heart of some of these issues from some normal folk who are some of the most accurate representations of the market target. True, it was still stilted and more prepared than an actual impromptu meeting, but it still had enough of the ring of truth to it that I didn't doubt every other concept as having come from the mind of the PR department.
To conclude, I am not saying suits can't be involved in these presentations, because truth be known, we wouldn't be having anything like the EMA itself if the suits weren't involved. They are the ones who drive the business behind the glitz, and that business and the revenues it generates are why we all have the opportunity to gather together at an event like this. God bless 'em all, just let the suits be suits and don't try to dress them in blue jeans.

2. All the suits need to do is to look towards our buddy Ernie to see the consummate crowd handler. It was almost a religious experience to me when Mr. Borgnine entered the room. Here is old time class, and Old Hollywood stardom. He had every one of us eating out of the palm of his old grizzled six-shooter shooting, PT Boat piloting hands. It was also a great object lesson in one of the other forces that drives this business of home entertainment, just plain old jaw-dropping celebrity. It is this which is the rock that truly brings us all together in our love for the ultimate home-theater performance, and nothing else, no matter how technologically advanced, can supersede the visceral connection between talent and fan. Whether you are watching on Kinescope, Beta, VHS, Laser Disc, Blu-Ray or HD DTV, if what you are watching does not connect with you on a gut level and hold your interest, all of this technological junk is only that, junk. It is the performer and the force of their celebrity, or the purity of their performance which makes us come back again and again and spend our hard-earned dollar on the entertainment express. Mr. Borgnine oozes this type of celebrity, and much more so in person than I ever expected. I was a Borgnine fan before this meeting, but after this meeting I was transformed into a Borgnine "Borg". I came home and bought the first season Mchale's Navy set (with the HTF code, of course) and started Googling "Marty". Borgnine now pulses through my veins and I immediately asked my wife if she didn't mind me whispering the name "Tova" in her ear during several well chosen moments of marital bliss. Besides, it was worth the entire session just to see the normally unflappable Mr. Epstein turn to a quivering mass of copyright busting jelly when caught in the sights of Ernie's guns when he thought his stories were going out over the internet without his approval. I did think it was going a bit too far, though, when Ron dropped to his knees and then lay prostrate on the floor hugging Mr. Borgnine's ankles as he cried for forgiveness, and just for a moment I may have lost a bit of respect for Ernest when he required Ron to drop his trousers and shuffle through the crowd in his boxer shorts (funny, I always imagined Ron as a "tighty-whitey" kind of guy) muttering the phrase "It is McHale's Navy, not Epstein's Army". Other than that, the time spent with Mr. Borgnine was definitely a highlight, and something I will always be grateful to Ron for including me in this opportunity.

3. (to be continued . . .) I am tired, what can I say, I will write more later.