The film content delivery company Gofilex has announced that it is now formally open for business in the Asia-Pacific region. Starting today, the expansion will see Gofilex’s services extend to Australia and New Zealand. The new office is being managed by a newly formed team.
Ian Cope, senior visual effects producer at Australia’s Rising Sun Pictures recently celebrated his 20-year anniversary at the company. A significant accomplishment in any career, Cope’s longevity is especially impressive for someone in the visual effects industry, where employment at one studio is often measured in months, not years. And, in that time he has worked on a long list of successful films, including Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Gravity, Ford v Ferrari, and Spiderman: Far from Home, to name just a few.
Benefitting from a worldwide boom in film and series production, Adelaide-based Rising Sun Pictures has opened a visual effects production studio in Brisbane. Visual effects supervisor Marc Varisco and compositing supervisor Matt Greig are leading the studio’s artist team. Veteran visual effects producer Jayne Herrmann is overseeing production.
United Cinemas recently upgraded their flagship facility at Warriewood with advanced JBL Professional cinema audio technology. Located just north of Sydney in Warriewood, United Cinemas is a premier seven-screen multiplex cinema that offers a premium movie-watching experience including leather recliners with built-in wireless phone chargers, as well as world-class food and beverage service.
Movio, a Vista Group company, has signed a three-year deal with Australian cinema chain Village Cinemas enabling renewed access to its marketing data analytics and campaign management solutions and new data integration capabilities.
Wallis Cinemas, Australia, has become the first exhibitor to embrace the Vista Cloud platform. “We’re excited about the whole system, and its impact on both our operations and sales channels,” said Wallis Cinemas COO Ben Huxtable. “Vista’s Digital Platform will power our digital channels and ensure uninterrupted ticket sales across all of our cinemas. And we’re also going to streamline the daily management of tasks for staff as they only have to log in to a single, intuitive web portal to access Vista’s entire capability suite. The time saving, and efficiencies will be massive.”
Rising Sun Pictures produced nearly 200 visual effects shots for the new Marvel Studios series Hawkeye, which recently debuted on Disney+. The studio’s work included the reproduction of an actual New York City neighborhood visible outside an apartment where much of the series takes place. Rendered in extraordinary detail, the urban exterior is seen in daytime and nighttime contexts and under varying weather conditions, including a snowstorm.
As Dolby Atmos continues to become a dominant force in the audio industry, studios like Melbourne-based Red Road Immersive are pushing the boundaries with sound design, bringing unparalleled audio experiences to listeners. Red Road owner Angus Davidson has been in the music business for four decades. He recently handled the sound on Little Tornadoes, a feature film that premiered at the 2021 Melbourne International Film Festival.
The global attention measurement platform Amplified Intelligence of Adelaide, Australia, is now working with cinema ad network Val Morgan on the first independent study to use attention metrics to compare the effectiveness of cinema advertising with other media channels.
Vista Group CEO Kimbal Riley has announced that longtime Movio executives Sarah Lewthwaite and Matthew Liebmann will jointly lead the company following the departure of co-founder and chief executive Will Palmer this December. Movio, the marketing data analytics and cinema campaign management company, was founded by Palmer and Peter Beguely in 2010. Lewthwaite, Movio’s chief client officer located in London, and Matthew Liebmann, Movio’s chief operating officer operating out of the company’s Auckland headquarters, will report directly to Riley.
