James Fine &Telecine Celebrate An Evening Of Friendship
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Our own tech guru Andrew Neale and I were lucky to be among the invited guests July 4 for a joint, slightly belated 60th birthday celebration for James Fine, president of Telecine, and of the company itself, which can now count a portfolio of more than 27 years of superb work in the world of digital signage.
Andrew Neale, Gail Chiasson, James Fine
Some 110 guests decended on Montreal’s Bain Mathieu for an evening of food, beverages, entertainment, music, fun, dancing, and as Fine and his lovely partner Chantale stressed, an evening of friendship. And friendship it was, with some of Fine’s lifelong buddies, along with business friends (from as far away as Sydney, Germany and London) and their better-halves, Telecine staff, and ages that ranged from a baby, a toddler and a couple of tweens up to Chantale’s parents.
The evening started with outdoor cocktails, then proceeded inside where the former swimming pool was filled with colourful tables and the centrepieces were made up of old electronics used by Fine and by Telecine in their early years. Between meal courses and throughout the evening, music by the Fundamentals (a great band with a huge repetoire, by the way) alternated with screened scenes from each decade of Fine’s and Telecine’s work. Adding to the fun was an expressive and ultra-flexible circus performer whose performances had everyone entranced.
We met some people we knew (Peter Cherna, vice-president research and development from Scala among them) and many we didn’t.
And the fun didn’t stop there, as we’d judge about 60 people descended (or perhaps we should say, ascended) the following night onto Fine’s combined home and office building where from the roof four floors up, we imbibed Italian wines, ate our way through Italian foods and watched the Italian fireworks of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition.
Fine’s and Telecine’s work in digital signage is known around the world but their work for Bloomberg is probably among their most publicly recognized. Our readers will remember that their work for Bloomberg’s New York headquarters won a Reggie (our equivalent of an Oscar) in The DailyDOOH Gala Awards’s inaugural year (back in 2012).
Fine has also been an entertaining, knowledgeable speaker at (what seems like) the vast majority of Ministry of New Media conferences we’ve run and covered (including of course the Thought Leadership Summit series).
In a short speech on party night, Fine said that he hopes that he can continue working with the Telecine team for another 30 years. We hope he can, too!
Follow DailyDOOH