Representatives from the European digital cinema technology and services company Ymagis Group returned to Hollywood last week to give private demos of their ÉclairColor process at the Harmony Gold theatre on Sunset Boulevard. Presenting side-by-side clips from last year’s release The Neon Demon, they showed high dynamic range images with high contrast, deep blacks, excellent highlight detail and vibrant colors.
International production and post group Umedia has opened a facility in Vancouver. The company has four other facilities around the world. The Vancouver office has installed a Baselight Two grading and finishing suite.
MTI Film has completed a major expansion of its Hollywood facility designed to accommodate growing demand for post-production services and support for high dynamic range content. The expansion includes the addition of two new color-grading suites and an editorial finishing suite, all HDR capable.
Director Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book won this year’s Oscar for Best Visual Effects. A Walt Disney Picture, the movie is unique because the only live action character, the boy Mowgli, was shot on bluescreen while everything else was computer-generated. The visual effects team included key talent from Technicolor and its subsidiary, the Moving Picture Company. In part one of our five-part series, Adam Valdez, visual effects supervisor with MPC explains how teamwork, talent and a pursuit of excellence combined to create a movie that has been widely acclaimed for its artistic and technological accompaniments.
Writer-director Nicolas Pesce’s debut feature, The Eyes of My Mother was finished at Technicolor PostWorks New York. The film is packed with heart-pounding moments, made all the more chilling by an artfully crafted black and white look captured by cinematographer Zach Kuperstein (also making his feature debut) and finished by colorist Sam Daley
Veteran digital colorist Bryan McMahan has joined Roundabout Entertainment. A frequent collaborator of Terrence Malick, McMahan has colored six films for the director dating back to the 2005 release The New World and including Weightless, slated for release next year. He has also worked with directors William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Robert Towne (Ask the Dust), Gore Verbinski (The Ring) and John Woo (Face/Off).
Hula Post, Hollywood, has developed an all-in-one workstation for virtual reality content creation. The workstation features stitching, stabilization, editorial, visual effects, titling, color correction, finishing and playback. It is available for lease on a short-term or long-term basis, and comes with the same 24/7/365 technical support and service that Hula provides for editing systems, media storage and networking projects.
The thriller Fury of a Patient Man (Tarde Para La Ira) won a plethora of awards at Spain’s Goya Awards, including the award for Best Film. The film, directed by newcomer Raul Arevalo and starring Antonio de la Torre, Luis Callejo, Ruth Diaz and Raul Jimenez, was finished at Madrid post-production facility Free Your Mind, which carried out the conforming, color grading and finishing using an SGO Mistika.
Last week La La Land was released in EclairColor in the following German cinemas: Nuremberg’s Cinecitta’ Multiplexkino and Eiszeit-Kino in Berlin. Distributed in Germany by StudioCanal and directed by Damien Chazelle, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
Filmworkers, Nashville, provided editorial and post-production finishing services for Garth Brooks: Yankee Stadium Live, a two-hour concert special that recently debuted on AT&T’s Audience Network. Produced and directed by Jon Small, the special, which was captured, finished and broadcast in 4K and documents the superstar musician’s two sold out shows from last summer. It was the first ever concert for a country artist at Yankee Stadium, and Brooks’ first appearance in New York City in 19 years. Filmworkers’ Adam Little edited the show; colorist Jimmy Cadenas applied the final color grade.
