Mainstay post house FotoKem, headquartered in Burbank, Calif., has extended its geographic reach to the Bay Area, acquiring San Francisco-based postproduction/visual effects company Spy Post, launched 10-plus years ago by partners Eric Hanson and Darren Orr. The purchase price was not disclosed.
Besides gaining a foothold in the Bay Area, FotoKem via the deal fortifies itself on the visual effects front. While well known for its core postproduction business, including color correction by virtue of having the only Spirit Datacine north of Los Angeles, Spy has considerable visual effects acumen, which was enhanced earlier this year with an infusion of key talent from the shuttered San Francisco VFX studio The Orphanage, headlined by veteran visual effects producers Nancy St. John and Amy Wixson, who both are now executive producers of feature visual effects at Spy. Also coming over from The Orphanage to Spy were head of production Luke O’Byrne and CG supervisor Michael Lester, who have pedigrees in long-form as well as commercials.
With this coterie of talent as well as other artisans, FotoKem has also formed a visual effects business unit housed within the newly expanded Spy Post facility.
Mike Morelli, FotoKem’s senior VP of strategic planning, noted that the Spy Post deal represents “a logical step in the expansion of our business. We can now have more of a direct relationship with our clients in Northern California, while offering extensive visual effects experience to our existing client base across the country.”
On the flip side, Spy garners assorted benefits by now being part of the FotoKem family. For one, Spy can bring to the Bay Area the many technical and artistic resources of FotoKem’s Burbank operation as the two facilities are digitally linked and in the process of attaining full connectivity. Thus directors and visual effects supervisors, as well as ad agencies, in the San Francisco market will be able to access Fotokem’s global data management, stereo digital intermediate services and technologies, film lab and varied post services, and nextLAB. The latter offers uncompressed file and tape-based workflows for features, episodic TV and commercial productions shooting in virtually any medium. For example, sophisticated post workflows for imagery captured by the RED digital camera can be tapped into by agencies and commercial producers in the Bay Area.
“Across the board,” said Hanson, “Spy Post can through FotoKem offer options for film processing, scanning and recording, and new technologies to the San Francisco community. Spy has become a storefront of sorts for those services, which strengthens the overall Bay Area infrastructure.”
Furthermore on that infrastructure score, plans are in place to open the first commercially available stereoscopic DI theatre in San Francisco. Hanson, who is now senior VP for FotoKem, San Francisco, and general manager of Spy Post, estimated that the timetable calls for the DI theatre to be up and running on the Spy premises sometime during the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year.
The Spy Post brand remains intact while operating as a FotoKem company. Spy co-founder Orr is freed to focus fully on the creative end, serving as visual effects supervisor/senior compositor.
“Our approach all along at Spy has been to be a playground for the many talented directors and visual effects supervisors who call the Bay Area home,” related Hanson. “FotoKem enables us to expand that playground and bring a lot more advanced tools and resources to those directors and effects supervisors.”
Hanson sees Spy maintaining its longstanding core commercial post and effects business while diversifying further into features and other forms of long-form content.
Spy Post opened in 1998. FotoKem’s storied history dates back to ’63, going on to establish itself as a noted film lab/post house spanning features, TV and spots, and broadening its base to serve the world of high-end digital filmmaking.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More