Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/749700
BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 8 POST NOVEMBER 2016 FREMONT, CA — Brazilian post house Afinal Filmes has taken the next step in its archival documentary restoration initiative by inte- grating Blackmagic Design's (www.black- magicdesign.com) Cintel Film Scanner into its workflow. Afinal Filmes is known for its post work on a number of award-winning documentaries, particularly for its skills in film restoration. In ad- dition to Nelson Pereira dos Santos, its portfolio includes collaborations with renowned direc- tors, including Walter Salles, Eduardo Coutinho, Joro Salles, Eduardo Escorel, Miguel Faria Jr. and Silvio Da-rin. The post house counts on a streamlined restoration workflow to manage its myriad of archival footage, and the addition of the Cintel scanner was vital to its future success and growth. "We had been using telecine to digitalize our films, but the quality suffered during the transfer and ideally we needed raw files to truly correct the footage," says Marcelo Pedrazzi, CEO at Afinal Filmes. "With this knowledge, our search began for a film scanner that would deliver the quality we desired with realtime performance and of course without breaking our budget. When Blackmagic released the Cintel, we found that it was not only a high-quality scanner, but also a scanner that could work in realtime, which we had not found anywhere else. It was exactly what we were looking for." Pedrazzi explains that because the Cintel allows him to turn around projects very quick- ly and with a high-degree of quality, he is able to expand his projects to include high-profile digitalization opportunities. "Adding Cintel really opens the doors for working on large and influential projects. One of the first Cintel project requests we have is to digitalize some of the classics from legendary film director Nelson Pereira dos Santos for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Cintel is getting Afinal into more discussions and more opportunities." Instead of spending hours scanning, the team is now able to scan each film minute for minute in realtime. Pedrazzi adds, "Previous to Cintel, this process would have taken three times as long, as we would have to send out for the telecine, then upconvert the footage before we could even start the restoration process. With Cintel, we are literally leaping over the time-consuming steps of digitalization and pro- ducing RAW files in realtime with much more color information for us to work with." Afinal Filmes uses secluded rooms for each step in the film restoration process. The input room features a Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio, a Blackmagic Design DeckLink 4K Extreme and Cintel. To begin the restoration workflow, the team digitizes older footage through the Cintel, captures it through the DeckLink and sends to a Mac Pro for editing and polishing in Resolve Studio. "We work with a vast amount of archived materials, and before the Cintel, I had to do much of our footage transferring in other facilities," says Marcelo. "Now, we can do it all at Afinal Filmes in our input room. We are even contacting many archive insti- tutions like MoMA and owners of old films so we can work with them to restore and remaster these films right inside our own facility. The Cintel is already helping our business to grow, and we can't wait to see where the future takes us." For more on "Restoration," see feature on page 26. AFINAL FILMES ADDS CINTEL SCANNER TO RESTORE BRAZILIAN CLASSICS BLUR BOLSTERS TECHNOLOGY & CREATIVE CAPABILITIES WITH NEW TALENT CULVER CITY, CA — Anima- tion, visual effects and design company Blur Studio (www. blur.com) continues to expand with key new hires Eric Maurer, character effects supervisor, and Oded Raz, asset super- visor. Maurer (top) and Raz (bottom) will bolster Blur's leadership team, increase the studio's capacity for larger projects, and foster the devel- opment of new technology as the company gears up for the next round of feature work by Blur co-founder and Deadpool director Tim Miller. "Bringing Eric and Oded on board, along with our recent hire of VFX supervisor Dan Akers, brings a level of senior leadership to Blur that enables our studio to take on larger and more technically-ambitious projects," says Miller. "These guys are industry veterans and have the experience and creative accomplishments to show for it. We're continuing to improve our technology infrastructure to accommodate greater opportunities in 2017 and beyond while expanding our creative experience across all platforms." Character effects supervisor Eric Maurer joins Blur with more than two decades of experience in the visual effects industry. He spent 15 years at Blue Sky Studios as the primary architect of the charac- ter effects and voxel rendering pipeline used across the facility, and contributed to eleven animated features including, The Peanuts Movie, Rio and all five films in the Ice Age franchise. Prior to joining Blue Sky Studios, Maurer worked as a technical director and digital effects supervisor on film and commercial projects at multiple facilities in New York, including R/GA and Imaginary Forces. Asset supervisor Oded Raz joins Blur with many years of experience as a CG supervisor and Look development lead for visual effects companies that include Luma Pictures, Digital Domain and Mirada Studios. He has worked as both an artist and a supervisor on many major Hollywood feature films and high profile commercial projects. His feature credits include Doctor Strange, Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He has also developed commercial visual effects for brands such as Disneyland, Coca Cola, Nike, Microsoft and Universal.