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June 2014

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www.postmagazine.com Post • June 2014 23 One of the first DI's for theColourSpace was done for The Living, an indie feature film shot with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and finished in 2K. three Smokes. Five days of Flame work can be turned around in as few as two days by marshalling Flame support to get "almost two full sessions in an eight-hour day," Cochrane explains. CG is done primarily in Autodesk Maya. The company recently added FilmLight's Baselight in a new color correction suite manned by Loren White, who relocated from LA. "We used to do color inside Flame but wanted to grow that service so we bought the Baselight2 and added a room," Cochrane reports. The Vanity actually dou- bled its physical space and smartened up its boardroom, too. Staff size doesn't seem to work against companies in this very "personality-based business," he notes. "People rarely book 'Flame time.' They book time with the Flame artist. One of the complaints we've heard from clients is that they sometimes get the 'B' or 'C' team at the big houses. But when they book a session here they know they're always going to get us." Small, independent post houses "have to work really hard for every dollar," Cochrane adds. "A big house can afford to do medio- cre work sometimes. But every job we do we have to knock out of the park so we know the client will come back." He admits that The Vanity may miss out on really big CG jobs if a client doesn't think the company can muster the fire power and assets to get it done on time. But The Vanity can call on a roster of talented CG artist friends to swell its ranks as it did for a recent Tim Hortons spot that literally showed that all of Canada was behind Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. Over the Boards showed Canadians of "all shapes, sizes and ages" joining Crosby for a pick up game. Only 100 extras were avail- able to comprise the ice army and fill the stands with 18,000 people. But a team of skilled CG artists peopled the ice and the arena finishing the job in a month. Looking ahead Cochrane sees maybe one more Flame in the picture, but the "stars would have to align with the person running it. This business is so service based that's it hard to find someone who's technical, artis- tic, has a great personality and can work with clients in a fast and efficient manner. Getting bigger for the sake of being bigger is not necessarily the smarter way to go." ATOMIC IMAGING Ari Golan, chief rocket scientist, founder and CEO of Atomic Imaging (www.atomici- maging.com), recalls when his Chicago-based company was a mega-shop with outposts in New York, LA, Las Vegas, San Juan and Barcelona. It retrenched after September 11, the dotcom crash and several recessions to emerge as a small, full-service Chicago facility with a soundstage and greenscreen cyc; full camera, sound and lighting packages; creative editorial and fin- ishing on Apple's Final Cut Pro 7; and color with DaVinci Resolve. "Now that the latest DaVinci upgrade has a feature set for finishing, we're doing that in Resolve as well," he says. "We color graded, finished, and did minor edits and audio fixes within Resolve for the last two features we did." Having seen Atomic Imaging be both big and small, Golan believes there are advan- tages to a smaller operation. "They run much more efficiently with fewer levels of mid-management and bureaucracy, which philosophically is a better thing," he declares. He's not worried about competing with big post houses. "There are so few of them left," he notes. Golan is more concerned about dealing with companies that are even smaller than boutiques — the owner-operator shops or "garage" shops, which offer rates that no facility can match. "They can afford to give it away," he says. "And it's not until clients get burned that they see the value in companies like ours. Where most [owner-operator] com- panies fall down is the work- flow — especially if revisions are needed — and all the deliverables that distributors are seeking." Having "the knowledge, workflow and bandwidth to deal with the broadcast and feature film distribution envi- ronment is probably the big- gest asset we have," Golan notes. "Shooting raw uncompressed file formats requires storage that's expo- nentially larger these days. It pushes hardware to the bleeding edge of technology. That's not something you can do at home." He believes that Atomic Imaging is "a perfect size" for most clients in feature, broad- cast, commercial, corporate and live event markets. "We provide a true facility with bandwidth and redundancy. We may not be able to take on 20 movies at a time, but we can do three, four or five of them. Clients feel they're getting good value and the exper- tise they need to get the job done." Golan served as a camera consultant for The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug in New Zealand last summer. He filled a number of roles on the feature The Kill Game – including co-producer, 2nd unit director, B camera, Steadicam and underwater camera operator. He also was underwater and B camera operator for Paranormal Island. Both fea- tures, which were screened at Cannes, tapped Atomic Imaging for color and finish- ing, including deliverables. Recently, the com- pany worked on a pilot for a children's TV show, which PBS is looking to pick up, plus corporate projects and live broadcasts for major pharmaceutical companies. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K pdf-no-bleed-has-crop-and-trim-fmc-20th-annivesary-one-third-based-on-v5-fixed-again.pdf 1 2/19/2014 2:40:54 PM

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