Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards, announced the 13 filmmakers and eight projects selected for its 2019 Documentary Lab. The Lab is an intensive two-week program designed to help filmmakers who are currently in post-production on their feature-length documentary films.
For the 14th year, The Hollywood Professional Association will honor the companies and individuals who draw upon technical and creative ingenuity to develop breakthrough technologies with the HPA Engineering Excellence Award. The call for entries for the Engineering Excellence submissions will close on May 24.
From the earliest days of feature length films until the 1980s, the movie going experience typically happened in a very large theatre with a really big screen. Faced with rising costs and increasing competition from television, exhibitors of that sad era cut their buildings into multi-screen complexes to increase ticket sales and maximize profits on concessions. Today, faced with a different set of economic realities, exhibitors around the world are increasingly responding by creating movie palaces that rival all but the most spectacular theatres of the turn of the last century. One trend at this year’s CinemaCon, which wrapped up last week, was the continuing rise of premium large format theatres. Another trend was the almost comical trashing of Netflix. PLF theatres and Netflix are both here to stay; we’ve been here before
Fathom Events has entered into a multi-year master distribution agreement with global independent film distributor 1091, formerly known as The Orchard. Under the agreement, 1091 and Fathom will work to curate and distribute compelling content, including sports and action/adventure films, to cinemas across the United States.
Distributor Neon has released The Beach Bum in Éclair Color high dynamic range at select Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations across the United States. This marks the first title available in Éclair Color HDR across the U.S. The movie opened in Germany (Constantin Film) in Éclair Color in March and will open in France (Mars Films) in July.
Deluxe Entertainment Services Group has signed a multi-year, strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services to offer faster and at-scale solutions for content creators and distributors. Additionally, Deluxe selected AWS as the company’s primary cloud provider, fully integrating AWS services to enable end-to-end content solutions offered via the Deluxe One platform.
A highlight of this year’s CinemaCon, which wrapped up Thursday, April 4, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, was the announcement of the formation of the Cinity Cinema System, a joint effort between the Huaxia Film Distribution Company, Christie Digital Systems and GDC Technology to “develop, leverage and promote premium format movies driven by new, advanced configurations.” The announcement follows several years of debate in Hollywood and around the world regarding the best way to move forward with critical technology issues including high dynamic range, high frame rate, wide color gamut and immersive sound. Those issues were widely discussed at CinemaCon and we will have more to say about the show in the coming days. But the Cinity Cinema System announcement stands out because it feels like a watershed event. The question now is this: is Hollywood still the center of the motion picture industry or is that center shifting to China?
Ymagis Group has announced that the standstill agreement entered into with its bondholders to renegotiate the repayment conditions of its Euro PP bonds has been extended through April 24. In addition, the standstill agreement has been extended to financial creditors other than bondholders.
The next in the series of acclaimed FilmLight Color Day master classes will be held April 8 during the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Presented by industry leaders in creative grading, this intensive day will introduce colorists, DPs and the wider production and post industry to the opportunities and challenges of modern color finishing and delivery.
Two visual effects-heavy commercial spots for Disney highlighting the latest Star Wars toys and merchandise benefited from play to the firing of children’s imagination: Choose Your Path focuses on The Last Jedi merchandise, featuring three children playing in an attic bedroom; a boy puts down a Kylo Ren toy, which then comes to life to fight Lego starships, while two of the children duck as a ship speeds past them on the red salt flats of Crait – which then seamlessly turn back into the bedroom with a classic Star Wars wipe. Galaxy Of Adventures features the original Star Wars trilogy and Solo: A Star Wars Story, with more children playing in an attic room, interacting with the toys and merchandise in a series of tableaux reminiscent of scenes from the films.
