Ben Forta

I’m backstage, going through final prep for the MAX 2007 opening keynote. Each year we make this look clean and smooth and effortless – kind of. But if you’ve never seen what goes on behind the stage, picture a large area (the width of the hall) containing over a hundreds of piece of equipment and banks of computers, a mission control center that looks like a NASA control room, eight gigantic rear projection projectors, headset wearing producers and directors armed with clipboard buzzing around, technicians fine-tuning the colors and alignments of the massive screens, audio technicians wiring up presenters and performing last minute sound checks, final cue walkthroughs … and it’s time, this is it … lights, camera … keynote!