Visual effects shop Custom Film Effects and digital intermediate house Hollywood Intermediate have joined forces to form the Main Street Media Group, bringing Visual Effects, Title Design, Digital Intermediate, and Scanning/Recording into one pipeline.
“This new relationship strengthens each company and allows them to take on larger, more complicated projects,” said Mark Dornfeld, President of Custom Film Effects. With post production schedules continually shortening, making the best use of a project’s time in the Digital Intermediate suite is essential. Dornfeld adds, “This is where the Main Street Media Group’s approach benefits producers most.”
“What we’re seeing today is that virtually all films have some form of visual effects work,” notes David Waters, President and CEO of Hollywood Intermediate. “Whether it’s cleanup or last minute studio notes and changes, these unforeseen shots often cause major delivery panics at the end of a post schedule. We’re here to change this.”
Though the tools available in today’s Digital Intermediate suites are numerous, when it comes to complex compositing, painting, or rotoscoping, this often time-consuming work is best done on specialized workstations. In the interest of speed, however, producers will often attempt to complete work in the DI suite or in an adjacent Smoke or Inferno bay. If this involves just a few shots, this might be acceptable. However if the number of shots or their complexity is beyond a minimal level, a project can easily burn through its allotted time, running the risk of short-changing the color correction process.
“At the Main Street Media Group, producers have at their disposal a team of animators, compositors, and title designers working in parallel with a top-notch scanning, recording, and color correction team. This gives each project the maximum attention and quality to the effects work without creating a bottleneck in the DI room,” says Christopher Cundey, Director of Marketing for Custom Film Effects.
Both Waters and Dornfeld are extremely excited at what the new alliance will bring to the film finishing process.
“This is about giving our clients the best tools for the job.”
About Custom Film Effects – Since its founding in 1998, Custom Film Effects has produced visual effects for over 200 feature film, and through its title division Right Lobe Design, has designed and executed main titles and end credits for over 80 films.
About Hollywood Intermediate – Hollywood Intermediate is LA’s premiere Digital Intermediate boutique facility. With its top-notch services, unique décor and convenient location, Hollywood Intermediate seamlessly integrates superior quality into performance, atmosphere, client and community, accommodating a full range of budgets, from productions that historically would finish photochemically and require very aggressive digital intermediate pricing, to higher budgeted projects with leading DPs, directors and producers.
