3000 Solution Symposium attendees got a sneak preview of a film by Chris Gauthier covering their favorite computer system, as the filmmaker and Client Systems technician sent the lunchtime crowd went into the dark to see the system’s bright future.

“Growing Up with the HP 3000” will eventually screen at a 25-minute running time, the “standard PBS length,” Gauthier said in remarks before his working cut was shown. The film features interviews with e3000 customers and advocates gathered during last year’s HP World conference, as well as rare images of 3000 materials from the system’s first decade.

3kworld.com program manager Dave Marsh introduced Gauthier, a senior technical consultant serving the authorized e3000 resellers served by Client Systems in North America. “the 3000 marketplace can be summed up with passion,” Marsh said. “It’s vibrant and very dynamic, and Chris exemplifies a high degree of that excitement and passion.”

Gauthier spoke before his film about the journey of illustrating the emotion of the community for others to see. “The goal is to go beyond the standard installed base,” he said. “This is an excerpt from a first cut as they say in the movie biz, which I thought I was going to go into in high school. I played with the 3000 and I did film back then.” Several of Gauthier’s films were shown at the New York Film festival when he was 18.

“It’s kind of a personal thing, more than anything else, but it’s the American success story. I come from a generation of people who don’t say a lot of positive things about people before us. When we grab onto something that’s positive, though, we kind of overplay it. This [film] is overplayed, sure, but you guys can just deal with it.”