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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 6 POST MAY/JUNE 2020 CINELAB LONDON INSTALLS SECOND DFT HDR SCANITY LONDON — Cinelab London (www.cinelab.london) has installed its second DFT HDR Scanity in an ef- fort to meet demand from major studio productions and those requiring archive and restoration services. The new Scanity film scanner has a full complement of gates for 8mm, 16mm and 35mm motion picture film stock, and scanning capabilities at up to 4K 16-bit. Cinelab London owns and operates a pin-regis- tered 6K Arriscan, optically stabilized 4K Scanity and Spirit. The Scanity HDR is the preferred solution for major studio productions where a scan-once approach is necessary. For film archives, it provides a high level of throughput, coupled with optical stabilization to ensure premium results. Scanity is capable of up to 5x realtime scanning for filmmakers and archivists that require a lower resolution 'visual audit' of their libraries prior to se- lecting specific reels for higher quality capture. The Super 16 and Super 8 gates give the ability to over scan the image by 25 percent, providing a view of the full film frame, including edge of sprockets. This has become an increasing trend in commercials and music promos. For archive clients, automated QC of content using Joanneum Research Vidcert can create highly-detailed reports on film condition and artifacts scanned. "At the peak period in 2019, Cinelab London scanned over 1.1 million feet of film in three months — an unprecedented amount," says Adrian Bull, CEO of Cinelab London. "This second Scanity ma- chine will allow us to answer the growing demand for scanning and archive services at an unrivalled level. It has always been our goal to provide an all-encompassing facility for those filmmakers who were continuing to shoot film or restore it." QUICKFX.COM POOLS VFX TALENT HOLLYWOOD — VFX studio Engine Room (www. engineroomhollywood.com) is now hosting QuickFX.com, a cloud-based visual effects service platform curated and operated by a team of veteran VFX supervisors, who coordinate an expansive and seasoned pool of industry artists. The concept dates back a half dozen years, when the company had a vision of what the visual effects business could become: high-end visual effects services that are instantly accessible to content producers anywhere. "QuickFX is about the future of VFX production and the VFX business," explains VFX supervisor and Engine Room founder Dan Schmit. "In this quaran- tined world, the paradigm shifted 180 degrees, from studios requiring their VFX companies to have a physical facility, to that same asset becoming a lia- bility, especially for the vendor, who has to shoulder the cost. Suddenly, there is more safety with remote teams that are spread out." Schmit acknowledges that much visual effects production has been produced remotely for years, but QuickFX.com is different in the way teams are connected. "It's been built to unite clients and artists in seam- less collaboration," he explains. Engine Room, the production muscle behind QuickFX, has a near-20-year history in Hollywood, where it has been producing thousands of visual effects shots each year for movie studios, broad- cast, streaming networks and advertising. After witnessing the decades-long flight of visual effects work from California, Schmit is especially interested in keeping work local. "The end-goal is to deliver great VFX shots, fast and affordable, making Hollywood more globally competitive," he says. "Our clients get the advan- tage of knowing that we are choosing the right experienced people for their project. It's all about the talent, which we have an abundance of here in Los Angeles, the birthplace of the VFX industry." QuickFX.com, runs on the AWS cloud platform and is a complete VFX ecosystem, allowing con- tent makers to launch visual effects projects from any computer to get fast quotes, greenlight jobs, review shots and receive final delivery, much of which can be managed through any mobile device. "While there are other management platforms out there for VFX, QuickFX, as a service interface, is specifically focused on both the production side and the business side of VFX," explains Schmit. "We have an e-commerce component allowing produc- ers to pay with credit card or purchase order, all from within their project portal. Everyone is working within the same interface." QuickFX custom visual effects services in- clude cinema-level compositing of greenscreen and bluescreen elements, screen replacements, 3D CGI effects, light effects, fire, light, explosions, crowd duplications, cosmetic work, paint effects, sign replacement, set extensions and much more. Engine Room is TPN compliant, and both Engine Room and QuickFX are Disney-Marvel content security-approved. Adrian Bull and Cinelab's new Scanity.