Audio post facility Mike Recording Services has launched a visual effects division, Sky.efx, which features Flame artist Mark Leiss. Located on the West Los Angeles premises of Mike Recording Services, the new venture is a departure from the normal direction of diversification. Instead of a video facility branching out into audio, Sky.efx represents just the opposite: an audio house moving into the visual arena.
"The move to offer a special effects bay at our postproduction sound facility is an effort to provide another service to our existing clientele, and to offer clients consistently high production value across video and audio post," related Mike Recording Services owner Chris Bell, who’s best known as a music composer/sound designer.
Bell continues to maintain a group of three companies on the Westside: music/sound design house Chris Bell and Company, Mike Recording Services, and Tonedog.com—which provides music and sound design for the Internet and other interactive venues.
Already under the Sky.efx banner, Leiss has wrapped promos for FOX Sports Net, a music video entitled "Bitter" for artist Shante More, and effects for Nickelodeon series The Amanda Show. Leiss spent the past five years at The Post Group, West Los Angeles (the shop also maintains a Hollywood operation). While with The Post Group, he worked as a designer and compositor on major FOX Sports Net client-direct ad and promo work—including the 2001 NASCAR package, and the cable network’s ’99/’00 National Basketball Association "Metal" and Major League Baseball’s "Red" campaigns. For the FX Network, Leiss turned out numerous promos and spots—among them, the Toughman, "Only on FX" and "Summer of X" campaigns. His episodic endeavors included special effects and compositing for Home Improvement and the Sci Fi Channel’s Sliders series, as well as composites and titles for such Nickelodeon series as Keenan and Kel, and All That. Leiss’ music clip portfolio includes the Van Halen video "Fire in the Hole."
Howard Dubin, general manager/CFO of Chris Bell & Co., as well as of Mike Recording Services, said that Sky•efx hopes to help Leiss garner spot assignments from ad agencies, while maintaining his longstanding clientele in promos and episodic TV. Dubin observed that the division’s formation made sense in that Mike Recording Services already had much of the staff and backroom infrastructure in place to support a Flame effects and compositing operation. Mike Recording executive producer Theresa Storm, for example, is handling booking for the Flame bay. Still, added Dubin, the state-of-the-art Flame setup, which runs on an SGI Octane platform, represents a significant investment.
Leiss foresees a trend in which smaller Flame boutiques will again start sprouting up. "This happened in the early eighties, when larger facilities were given stiff competition by smaller competitors," he related, reasoning that some entrepreneurial artists will want to declare independence and get out of facilities owned by large corporations.
Bell and Andy Snavley are the resident composers/sound designers at Chris Bell and Company, which has also launched a satellite, Johannes Hammers at Chris Bell (see separate story, p. 1). Mike Recording Services’ audio mixers are Bob Gremore and Bruce Bueckert. Snavley also oversees Tonedog.com.
