Hercher to Band Pro – Baier to Leica

On Feb 1, 2012, Rainer Hercher was named Managing Director of Band Pro Munich. On Feb 3, we learned that Gerhard Baier was named Managing Director of CW Sonderoptic (Leica Summilux-C Cine Lenses).

Rainer Hercher was previously Business Development Manager at Band Pro Munich GmbH, a subsidiary of Band Pro Film & Digital, Inc., headquartered in Burbank, California.

Before Band Pro, Rainer was at Berlin-based Camelot Broadcast Services GmbH, which he co-founded and where he was Managing Director. (Full disclosure: Camelot was an FDTimes sponsor.) Camelot was a major Berlin rental house of high-end video equipment for broadcast, film and television. Before Camelot, Rainer was a cameraman, covering events worldwide.

Rainer replaces outgoing Managing Director Gerhard Baier. After nearly 10 years as the head of Band Pro Munich, Gerhard stepped down on January 31, 2012.

Today, February 3rd, 2012 we heard that Gerhard is working in Wetzlar. Eric Feichtinger continues as Managing Director. Eric’s background is banking and finance. Gerhard, I assume, will handle the nuts and bolts side of management. Iain Neil will continue as designer, consultant and more.

Rainer said, “Gerhard and Band Pro Munich were instrumental in helping Europe move into the world of HD production through their training seminars, workshops and technical demonstrations. I look forward to continuing his tradition of working with the community through educational outreach and by continuing to provide the high-quality products that are pushing our industry forward. We have spent the last year traveling and demonstrating the new Leica Summilux-C lenses, which are beginning to deliver. Now Sony has released the F65 camera and we are building workshops to get cinematographers, camera crews and DITs up to speed on it as well.”

Gerhard said, “I look forward to bringing my practical production experience to Leica and helping to ramp up production.” I think he said something about bringing Hollywood to Wetzlar, but our phone connection was sounded like the conductor on New York’s Lexington Line Subway (barely audible) and it was noisy at the BSC Show where I got the news.

We wish both Rainer and Gerhard our best wishes in their exciting new positions.

 

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