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Game studio Frima adds VFX division at a glance... CORRECTION: In May’s “Director’s Chair” department featuring John Car- penter, the director was quoted as saying Jason Payne was the VFX supervisor on his new film, The Ward. Payne actually served as post production supervisor on the project.The film’s VFX supervisor was Jason McKee. THE MILL in London won a BAFTA Craft Award for the studio’s work on Merlin Series 3, EP 2:The Tears of Uther Pendragon Part 2.The studio was hon- ored in the Visual Effects category by the British Academy of Film and Televi- sion Arts.The Mill was nominated in the same category for its work on Doc- tor Who. recently teamed up with GENARTS to host a free Webinar highlight- CEO Steve Couture discusses Frima’s new division, which will produce visual effects for films and TV shows. UEBEC CITY, QUEBEC — Indie game developer Frima Stu- dio (www.frimastudio.com) has opened a new visual ef- fects division called Frima FX, which is already at work on its first major production, The Ice Age, a 3D IMAX film produced by Giant Screen Films in association with The Field Museum. Frima Studio has been developing products for the Web, Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Face- book, iPhone, iPad,TV and mobile markets.The studio also re- cently acquired the VFX division of Quebec production house Studio Virtuel Concept (SVC). Why start a VFX firm while already a successful game company? “We wanted to create a synergy between our artistic pipeline for videogames and our pipeline for VFX to improve our overall artis- tic capabilities.The next generation of videogame consoles will need very high caliber visuals, and Frima wants to be ready, in ad- vance, for this new technology,” says CEO Steve Couture. Frima FX will focus on visual effects production for live action, animated film and television projects. SVC’s previous works in- clude 3D IMAX films such as Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia. They will call on tools such as Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Mental By Randi Altman Ray and Boujou. ing the company’s Sapphire for Final Cut Pro plug-in.The “Finishing for Air with Sapphire for Final Cut Pro”Webinar featured a presentation by View- point Creative’s (www.viewpointcreative.com) Peter Bowring, who has worked on projects for CBS, Discovery Channel, ESPN, HBO, HGTV, His- tory Channel, National Geographic Channel, Science Channel, Screenvision and Showtime. Bowring shared some of his go-to finishing effects using Sap- phire for Final Cut Pro. Digital agency DOMANI STUDIOS (www.domanistudios.com) in Brooklyn has hired Jonathan Lander as creative director. He will work with offices in New York and Chicago. Prior to joining Domani, Lander was creative direc- tor at the UK full-service interactive agency Code Computerlove for five years.There, he worked with clients such as Oxfam, Sony, Nike, Durex, Berghaus, and Epson. THE HOLLYWOOD POST ALLIANCE is seeking entries for the 6th Annual HPA Awards (www.hpaawards.net), which will take place in Los Angeles on November 10.The HPA Awards were created to foster awareness of post production, promote creative and technical excellence, recognize the achieve- ments of post production talent, and build involvement in the HPA.The period of eligibility for submission is September 8, 2010 through September 6, 2011. Deadline for submissions in the creative categories is July 29. CALDIGIT’s new FASTA-6GU3 combines two next-generation interfaces into a single card.The FASTA-6GU3 offers throughput speeds of up to 6Gb/ps and features both USB 3.0 and 6G eSATA connectivity. CalDigit designed the FASTA-6GU3 card for content creators working in video editing, audio sweet- ening and photography.The card is priced at $139. Jonathan Bird (pictured) of produces, hosts and helps edit the show, which is shot on multiple formats. He calls on Apple’s Final Cut Pro for editing and also employs Blackmagic’s Decklink. AWHITELABELPRODUCT (www.awhitelabelproduct.com) in NYC has signed French director Olivier Gondry for global representation. He is known for his use of visual effects where he plays with time-slice technology and stop-motion animation. Gondry brings a long list of commercial and music video credits to the bi-coastal company. He has directed notable campaigns for McDonald’s, LG, Audi, Fiat and HP and music videos for OK Go,The Vines and, recently, the French group Hermaentaire. MPC (www.moving-picture.com) has opened a new creative studio in New York City, where it is providing visual effects services, as well as color grading, design and production.The 13,000-square-foot facility occupies the 8th and 9th floors of a turn-of-the-century factory located on Broadway in SoHo. MPC is outfitted with Flame and Nuke for compositing,and Maya and 3DS Max for an- imation.The studio also has motion graphics capabilities and data lab services. www.postmagazine.com June 2011 • Post 11 P O S T Q Jona than Bird’ s Blue W orld