The Visual Effects Society is proud to host the upcoming Women in Visual Effects panel on Wednesday, September 30th. The keynote speaker will be Marvel's EVP of Visual Effects & Post Production, Victoria Alonso. The panel, to be moderated by postPerspective's Editor in Chief, Randi Altman, will be comprised of five talented New York based women who hold various positions within the visual effects industry. Focusing on the achievements of the panelists, career paths taken, as well as the challenges and changing opportunities for young women trying to find their way into the business of VFX and Animation, this panel will be a great opportunity to learn more about careers within the visual effects industry and what it takes to succeed there.
The panel will be held at SVA's Beatrice Theatre and is open to members of the VES, PNYA, and NYWIFT, as well as students from School of Visual Arts and other NY schools. Follow VES-NY's Facebook page for updates of the event, or check out the VES NY website closer to the date.
The SIM Group, a leading supplier of production and post-production equipment and services to the motion picture and television industry, has entered into an agreement today to merge with Post Factory NY, one of New York City's largest independent providers of post-production services. The move significantly enhances the SIM Group's East Coast presence. The company's Bling Digital unit recently opened a facility in Brooklyn, offering dailies, off---line editorial and finishing services. Post Factory NY has two Manhattan facilities, comprising of 38,000 square feet, with more than 60 editing suites, two color grading suites, a DI theater and post production sound. Future plans call for further development of finishing services, both for feature films and dramatic TV series.
"It's the perfect marriage to help us service the New York post-production market," said SIM Group CTO Chris Parker. "Our companies share a common culture that is customer-centric and service-focused. It's the people at Post Factory NY who set it apart and that was what really attracted us to them."
"This addition will allow us to more effectively address the needs of clients on the East Coast and throughout North America," said SIM Group CEO Rob Sim. "It provides a great path for both companies to grow and to offer a more comprehensive mix of services. We are very excited to welcome Post Factory NY to the SIM Group family."
Post Factory, which will continue to operate under its current name and management, gains expanded resources and geographic reach through the ability to align with Bling and other SIM Group companies, including SIM Digital, PS Production Services, Chainsaw, Pixel Underground and Tattersall Sound & Picture.
Post Factory Founding Partner and CEO Alex Halpern said that his company, too, was seeking a path for growth. "We were looking for a partner who we felt understood our philosophy and roots and would help us accelerate our growth while preserving our culture," he said. "We wanted a path to service our clients on the West Coast, without diminishing our presence at home in New York. As an independent company, that's challenging. Now, we have not only gained a West Coast presence, but also an international presence. That will enable us to better service our clients working around the world. It's fantastic."
"The companies in the SIM Group have a great reputation," added Post Factory COO Kim Spikes. "We are very excited to introduce our clients to them. We expect to find a lot of opportunities to share and collaborate between the East and West coasts."
Post Factory's clientele includes HBO, Fox, ITV and Paramount, as well as many independent producers. It has a strong record for supporting filmmakers in New York and beyond.
Caryn Horowitz, the company's Managing Partner, said that the company hopes to deepen its relationships with filmmakers by tapping into the SIM Group network.
She cited Bling Digital's expertise in dailies processing as an example. "I found Sim's facilities in Toronto and LA very impressive and the added services we can offer to our NY clients, with Bling's skilled staff, really enhance and complement what we offer our customers," she said.
"We've been thrilled by the rapid success of our Bling Digital office in Brooklyn," Parker added. "There has been tremendous demand. There is also growing need for our other specialty services such as the live events handled by Chainsaw. New York is unique in that it produces all types of programs including movies, TV series and live events, and our unique blend of services addresses that demand."
Alongside the added physical resources, Halpern said that he looks forward to being part of a larger creative team. "Both companies are very collaborative," he said. "It's exciting to have more resources and more brain power."
It's not just the city streets that are heating up this summer in New York. In the Alkemy X (formerly DIVE) studio on 5th Avenue, the Alkemy X visual effects team is hard at work on a series of projects. Alkemy X is led by VFX Supervisors Ed Mendez and Dave Zeevalk, Executive Producer Leah Garner Orsini, and VP Business Development Bob Lowery. In early June, the Alkemy X team attended the premiere of "Power" for Season 2, airing on Starz, having provided the visual effects on both Seasons 1 & 2. Alkemy X also provided visual effects for the pilot of "Mr. Robot," which was picked up and premiered online and on USA. They also provided visual effects on the pilot for "Outcast" for Cinemax, which has been picked up and will debut in early 2016. Led by Mendez, the Alkemy X team were on-set for HBO's "The Leftovers," which recently went into production on Season 2. Debuting this fall in October, Alkemy X is once again the primary visual effects creative partner contributing to the incredibly popular HBO series. Other projects the Alkemy X team is working on, which will debut later this summer and in the fall are "American Ultra" in August and "Flesh & Bone" on STARZ in November.
Colorist Anthony Raffaele assists award-winning cinematographer John Thomas in giving the new series a distinctive look.
Post-production finishing for the first season of TV Land's inspired new comedy Younger was recently completed at Technicolor PostWorks New York. Senior Colorist Anthony Raffaele applied the final color grade to the original series, which garnered the largest in-season audience growth of any show in the network's history.
Raffaele worked under the supervision of series creator Darren Star (Sex and the City) and cinematographer John Thomas, who previously teamed with Star on Sex and the City, and more recently lensed Gossip Girl and The Big C.
Younger centers on Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a 40-year-old recent divorcee who poses as a 26-year-old in order to land a job at a New York publishing house. The show delivers a thoughtful brand of romantic comedy that subverts stereotypes surrounding professional women of all ages.
Thomas supports Younger's layered, multi-generational story through the use of several distinct looks and camera techniques, each meant to highlight a different aspect of Liza's increasingly fragmented life.
"First, there is Liza's ‘real life' as a 40-year-old woman dealing with her past as a New Jersey mom," Thomas explains. "Those scenes are lit realistically and shot with minimal camera movement. Then there is Liza's life at the Manhattan publishing house Empirical Press where she's an assistant, living a lie. Those scenes are well lit and the camera is active but controlled. Finally, there's her new social life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's darker, funkier, a hipster environment where she's trying to blend in. The camera is often handheld and free."
Each of these looks are further enhanced by Raffaele's artistic approach in grading sessions at Technicolor PostWorks. "Younger is a beautiful show with great environments and high production value," says Raffaele. "The color palette is saturated, clean and poppy. It's a cinematic look with a lot more attention to detail than you typically see in television comedy."
Raffaele grades Younger using a FilmLight Baselight system. Editorial conforming is done by Finishing Editor Mike Nuget using an Avid Symphony equipped with FilmLight's Baselight for Avid plug-in. This workflow allows Raffaele and Nuget to share elements organically and efficiently, and preserves quality by lessening the need to render.
Grading sessions were coordinated with Thomas' busy production schedule, with some sessions occurring during evenings and weekends. "Technicolor PostWorks' flexibility in scheduling grading sessions has been an enormous benefit—as has Anthony's talent and ability to see the project through my eyes," says Thomas. "We don't leave a session until the show looks great."
For more information, visit http://www.technicolorpwny.com
Recent ADR included "The Daughter", "Bebba Boys", Robert Redford for the NRDC, "The 100", as well as 5.1 mix and 2k color finishing package for the feature, "Max Saves the World".
Buttons NY anniversary was celebrated with a renovation including 80 inch screens, 2 Avid Pro Tools 11, HDX mix stage upgrades, 5.1 mixing stage upgrade to a 32 fader Avid console, three additional Avid Pro Tools 11 HD Native systems linked to our dual fiber central media storage, and gigabit network sfx server.
Our Picture Editorial suite includes the latest Adobe Premier, Avid Media Composer, and 2 Resolve 11 systems. One Resolve handles 4k Color Grade workflows.
Plans include a facility expansion, and now through August, we are considering strategic partnerships of Sound and Picture. To inquire, contact Rich Macar.
This past July 18th, PNYA members attended the first East coast tech presentation on the proposed new ACES standard, which is expected to help standardize digital workflow in production and post. Along with our counterparts from the New York-chapter of the Visual Effects Society, we met in the early evening at the School of Visual Art's West 23rd Street theater.
Alex Forsythe, Technical Lead on the ACES Project at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), did the presenting, delivering his talk on the recently announced Version 1.0 of the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES). For PNYA'ers, the event was a welcome recognition. This was his first trip to New York as an AMPAS emissary, designed to explain the new color management technology to an audience of post professional peers.
(If you'd like to read more about ACES, visit the ACES pages on the AMPAS web site by clicking here)
Forsythe's talk marked one of the first events created by PNYA to offer a high-profile professional development opportunity for individual and company members.
Yana Lehman, chair of PNYA, opened the evening's session with a short speech. In comments afterwards, Lehman said, "The Post New York Alliance was honored to collaborate on the ACES event with the Academy and the VES. Post in New York has always been fast, artist driven and efficient. The ACES demonstration brought the exciting possibility of consistency across many platforms and phases of the post processes."
"The message that we got loud and clear," Yana continued, "was that projects need to consider their end game before they begin. Thinking about post is always relevant in the development and pre-production phase. This message is what makes ACES of particular interest to the New York post industry, and why it will likely succeed here."
PNYA Education Chair Ben Baker, organizer of the event, also acted as panel moderator. "Being the peak body for postproduction professionals and companies in New York, we were honored to be approached by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to partner on this event," says Baker. "We saw this as an opportunity not only to work with the Academy, but also to provide some leadership around this new set of technology and standards being adopted in New York. Judging by the turnout and response to this event, we look forward to working with the Academy again."
So, what exactly is ACES? The Academy's web page describes it as a "free, open, device-independent color management and image interchange system that can be applied to almost any current or future workflow."
AMPAS runs an important movie archive, so it is important for them and other groups to have a single file format that could help make sense of today's mix of film, 2K, 4K, 6K, 3D and more. A universal color and file format standard is key.
"Implementing ACES in our pipeline removes so many unnecessary steps!" say Chris Healer, CEO and CTO of effects house The Molecule. Healer was also one of the evening's panelists. "(Using ACES), We can more reliably deliver dailies back to editorial and integrate CG and multicamera material into single comps. Consistency, verification and standards are key elements to digital color that are largely missing without ACES."
Look for future educational opportunities that will offer PNYA members more chances to understand how ACES will affect them. Also, be sure to check out our panel discussion at CCW 2015 in November; organized by PNYA, it will touch on ACES and other important ideas about the future of post in New York.
Look for a longer version of this article in an upcoming PNYA blog.
The VES NY has teamed up with the School of Visual Arts to offer monthly Master Class sessions this summer and fall.
Their first class on SATURDAY JUNE 27, was a huge success and focused on EFFICIENCY IN COMPOSITING.
Chris Healer (CEO, The Molecule) taught an important secret to his company's success using actual projects files from The Following, Ballers and The Affair. With the TV industry in New York growing at an unprecedented rate, VFX companies and artists have had to keep up with new and improved, streamlined workflows to deliver high volume in tight deadlines.
Andrew Bly, Chair of the VES NY Section and Principal of The Molecule speaks to the importance of these classes. "Here at the VES NY we feel that the future of our visual effects community hinges on all of us growing together. Sometimes it's really tough to take the time out of a busy work day to have in-depth and impactful learning sessions, and this is why we are holding our Master Classes on Saturdays from 11pm - 4pm. Teaming up with SVA and their computer labs has proven to be a key element in making these classes small, intimate, and hands on, all great qualities of productive learning. We will continue these classes through the fall with our July class being about Animation. Classes are open to VES members and 5 SVA Students first, then we'll open all available seats to the general public a few days before the class with free admission for all who attend."
If you're interested in attending one of these Master Classes please follow the VES NY Facebook page for updated information, or check out the VES NY website closer to the date.
Re-recording mixer, location sound recordist, and PYNA member Cory Choy was thrilled and honored to win an Emmy Award this year for his work on "Born To Explore" with Richard Wiese (ABC). Choy, a New York based Re-recording mixer had the good fortune to be able to not only mix the show, but also travel the world with the production team. Highlights include journeying in a houseboat down the rivers of Indonesia, helping medicate a baby rhino in South Africa, and flying in a hot air balloon in Turkey.
Joseph Miller will music supervise the feature length documentary This Is Alzheimer's.
This Is Alzheimer's is produced by Seth and Lauren Miller Rogen's Hilarity For Charity, in association with the Alzheimer's Association.
You can learn more about the film and donate to our cause here: https://www.crowdrise.com/ThisisAlzheimers
Joseph Miller is a NYC-based music supervisor: www.josephmillermusicsupervisor.com
Partners Jason Harris and Peter Pamela Rose (ADR Loop Group Coordinators) are happy to be coordinating the Loop Group on the following NY Projects: SundanceTV's "Hap and Leonard," Netflix's "The Untitled Aziz Ansari Show," FX's "Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll," Showtime's "The Affair," Amazon's "Mozart in the Jungle," FX's "The Americans," as well as completing Warner Brothers' "Run All Night" and New Regency's "True Story." Other active projects include: "Trumbo" directed by Jay Roach, Blumhouse/STX Entertainment's "The Gift," Universal's "The Veil" and "12 Monkeys" for the SyFy Channel.
Contact:
Jason Harris, jason@theloopingdivision.com, 917-405-5101
Peter Pamela Rose, peter@theloopingdivision.com, 917-721-3395
The POST NEW YORK ALLIANCE held its SIXTH Annual Cinqo De Mayo member party on May 5th at 52 Walker Street. It was a huge success, attended by over 350 Individual and company members. Our members stayed long into the night, eating the amazing Mexican food and celebrating the success of our post community. Thanks to all of our raffle sponsors including Disney, DreamWorks, The Weinstein Company, AMC Television, Rampant Design and Blackmagic Design. We appreciate their generous support!
Dann Fink & Bruce Winant (ADR Voice Direction and Loop Group Coordination) - Current or recently wrapped NYC Features include: "Steve Jobs"; "Genius"; "The Light Between Oceans"; "Adam Jones"; "Rock the Kasbah"; "A Very Murray Christmas"; "Ricki and the Flash"; "Green Room"; "American Ultra"; "The Intern"; "The Blunderer"; "Three Generations"; "Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving". Television includes: "Show Me a Hero" [HBO]; "Red Oaks" [Amazon]; "HAPPYish" [Showtime]; "South of Hell" [WEtv]; "Casanova" [Netflix]; "The Knick" Season 2 [Cinemax]; "Sharing" [NBC]. Contact Dann Fink at dannfink@gmail.com 646.206.7780.