Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/65909
PRIME FOCUS WORLD After launching in India 15 years ago, Prime Focus World (www.primefocus- world.com) is now headquartered in Los Angeles, with production facilities there, in London, Vancouver and New York. The company offers visual effects and stereo 3D services, and counts Clash of the Titans, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phan- tom Menace, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and the new Wrath of the Titans and Men in Black 3 among its 2D-to-3D stereo conversion credits. Says chief strategy officer, Bobby Jaffe, "We have a team of 4,500 people and technology that we customize and adapt to meet directors' needs." Prime Focus World comes to the stereo 3D con- version process with "a filmmaking mindset," Jaffe says. "CEO Namit Malholtra and myself are third-genera- tion filmmakers, so we understand how to be part of the process. Filmmaking is in the DNA of the company and our technology." The company's View-D proprietary toolset is fully customizable. "The whole idea is to develop a toolset and artistically integrate it across the scope of the company," says Jaffe. "When we did the lightsaber for Star Wars, it presented a new challenge with transpar- encies and lighting effects. Our R&D team was tasked with developing new and efficient toolsets to expand the capabilities of conversion and now we have that solution available for any laser-type effect." Prime Focus's Jaffe cites their 3D conversion work for Men in Black 3 as "a model" for new releases. "We were involved with Joyce Cox and Corey Turner before they went into production, working out workflows and pipelines with all the VFX companies, including ourselves. So the transfer of material went very smoothly. We like to work as quickly as possible to get footage to the stereographer and director so they have an opportunity to play with the depth, the iterations and dial in exactly what they want." He notes that the company has become "expert in data management by necessity and design. Complete movies — whether they're Men in Black 3 or Wrath of the Titans — can have 2,000 shots and tens of thousands of iterations by the time they're done. Our Prime Focus Technology division has developed a secure, easy-to-use cloud solution for data management that keeps us mov- ing forward and is now deployed throughout the marketplace." Jaffe says the launch of a Prime Focus NY facility will service the post produc- tion needs of that market and serve as a gateway to 3D conversion and VFX global teams. Interest is developing in NY for conversions for commercials and TV programming for the burgeoning 3D networks. "The London Summer Olympics will be broadcast in 3D and that's just around the corner," he notes. "We have developed a toolset with the quality, definition, speed and price point [required by] TV and home markets," Jaffe says. "We want to be optimized for the individual user as 3D becomes the global norm on iPhones, computers and televisions." LEGEND3D Legend Films opened in 2000 in San Diego as a digital colorizing company; it developed a proprietary 3D conversion process six years later and changed its name to Legend3D in 2009 (www.legend3d.com). With 30 conversion patents, Legend3D takes "a totally different approach" to the process, says founder/ CCO/CTO Dr. Barry Sandrew. This successful approach has garnered credits ranging from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to the Academy Award- winning Hugo and the upcoming 3D release of Top Gun. "Over the past 18 months we have improved the efficiency of our process and built a project management and asset control system, which takes out a lot of the human error as we move massive quantities of material, which can amount to 180,000 frames with hundreds of different levels," points out Sandrew. In addition to developing the asset control system, Legend3D "redid the pipeline to make it more efficient," he says. "By improving the technology and automating certain tasks, we have brought costs down 30 to 40 percent." The company's artist-friendly user interface also promotes speed and efficien- cies. "It takes a lot of the technology out of the process so our artists can work in a straightforward way to create depth," he says. "We're now working on a realtime editing process, so ideally the stereographer will be able to make changes on the fly and see them right away with rendering done later." All the creative happens in Legend3D's San Diego headquarters where 240 artists and engineers are housed. The company also maintains a facility in Patna, India, where a staff of 320 handles in-between masking for key frames delivered via server. "The pipeline is working beautifully," reports Sandrew. Prime Focus's Bobby Jaffe cites their 3D conversion work for Men in Black 3 as "a model" for new releases. The company just finished the entire 3D conversion for Top Gun (the original version is currently available on Blu-ray) and is working on a trio of features shot in 2D and slated for release in 3D. Legend3D has also done conversions for cinema commercials for Chase, Verizon and Pedigree dog food. The company recently introduced a broadcast conversion solution. "We've created a totally different process that fits within TV budgets," says Sandrew. "We've approached broadcast from a different perspective to keep prices down, but the quality of the conversion still holds up. We used a combination of our theatrical process and new broadcast process on the Chase cinema spot, and it saved a good deal of time while remaining very high quality." GENER8 Only 18 months on the 3D conversion scene, Vancouver-based Gener8 (www.gener8.com) has been growing by leaps and bounds, starting with 3D conversion of about 10 minutes of Priest and the Room of Requirements sequence in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 to completing about 90 percent of the conversion for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. "We worked with Iloura in Melbourne, Australia, the primary VFX vendor for Ghost Rider, " says Gener8 COO Tim Bennison. "We partnered to create a pre-VFX pipeline, which enabled us to share a match move at the beginning of each shot, then work in parallel to VFX in post, exchanging data all the way through. This gives you a much longer timeline for conversion than traditional post-conversions, where the effects are baked into the 2D. It proved to be a fantastic experience for us and the client. We produced the highest-quality, most cost-efficient conversion with stereo VFX integrated in true 3D space. " Bennison says, "Our method of 3D conversion lends itself to VFX work." Gener8's system "recreates a CG 3D replica of every shot — modeling the set and rig and animating the actors and props — so we're starting with a replica of the scene in true 3D space, like a high-fidelity previs," he explains. Once that's accomplished "the rest of the process is virtual native stereography — creating www.postmagazine.com Post • May 2012 31