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.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More