Prime Focus ramps up stereo 3D and digital services
Prime Focus is throwing its considerable weight behind the stereoscopic 3D (S3D) entertainment market, today announcing significant capital investment and expansion of its global S3D pipeline.
The global visual entertainment services group is putting the finishing touches to a new 65,000 square foot world headquarters in Mumbai, which will house seven S3D theatres and over 600 artist seats, along with a complete slate of visual effects, post and production services.
At its Hollywood studio, efforts will be re-focused on delivering S3D creative services including 2D-to-3D conversions and S3D editorial & visual effects for entertainment clients in film, television, advertising, and mobile content. To support this expansion, Prime Focus is building out 200 new artist seats, and has upgraded much of its pre-existing post infrastructure (DI suites, telecine bays, and theatres) into S3D-enabled spaces supporting both RealD and Dolby stereo projection. In addition, plans are in progress to build a new 45-seat stereo-enabled screening room.
The Hollywood studio has also hired notable stereoscopic supervisor Jeremy Nicolaides, whose credits include Alice in Wonderland, Arabia 3D, G-Force 3D, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, U2 3D and more. Additionally, Prime Focus producer Bridgitte Krupke has been appointed executive producer, and Chris Del Conte as senior producer, both overseeing 2D-to-3D conversion projects.
At Prime Focus in London, a 2D-to-3D conversion pipeline has recently been installed, and the company plans to expand into a new space to accommodate an additional 200 visual effects artists.
All of Prime Focus’ 16 international locations are connected over its Global Digital Pipeline™. At its heart is CLEAR™, the company’s proprietary content lifecycle management platform that acts as a collaborative digital workspace where media assets can be archived, accessed, managed and ultimately distributed.
“All of these efforts are in response to the growing demand from our clients who’re clamoring for high-quality S3D content,” said Namit Malhotra, global CEO and founder, Prime Focus. “Our global expansion will give us the capacity to support many more projects simultaneously.”
Going Digital
Prime Focus has also launched a digital production services department in London to service the growing demand from clients within the genre. The new department will offer digital live action production for virals, interactive web films and web banners as well as digital outdoor services, storyboarding and animatics. Other services will include creating 3D cinematics, motion graphics and test films for research, iPhone app development, augmented reality and experiential media as well as traditional design and build for websites.
“This new service is a natural step for our business,” said Anshul Doshi, Prime Focus global COO. “We’re building on our current involvement in major ongoing digital projects for leading brands such as Volkswagen, Woolworths.co.uk and Burberry.”
Head of digital production, Christian Gane, who‘s leading the new offering, will be developing opportunities in the digital market, executing projects from Soho as well as utilising Prime Focus’ global resources across North America and India. “It’s a very exciting and progressive move for Prime Focus to launch a fully fledged digital production services arm,” said Gane. “By leveraging Prime Focus’ strength in commercials post production and effects work, we can offer agencies the chance to tap into some invaluable resources, while still keeping it extremely cost effective.”
See more about Prime Focus on Fired By Design