As productions increasingly look for ways to make their workflows remote, Light Iron, a Panavision company, has responded with a range of innovations for dailies, offline editorial, DI, and finishing that expand clients’ creative options wherever they are working, even as the company’s in-facility offerings have resumed.
To further advance its support for innovation and reimagining postproduction workflows, Light Iron has brought three executives to its sr. leadership team. Seth Hallen, Phil Harrelson, and Laura Borowsky will help grow the company’s infrastructure, expand its service offerings, and support in-house talent while continuing to nurture the collaborative, innovative, and nimble atmosphere for which Light Iron is known.
Hallen joins Light Iron as co-managing director, bringing extensive expertise in production and post to the team, along with decades of leadership experience and a wide range of industry relationships. With a background as a business unit owner within Sony, an entrepreneur, and a CEO, Hallen currently serves as president of the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA), a role that he has held since 2016.
As Light Iron’s VP of operations, Harrelson will be responsible for managing the company’s overall operations, with a particular focus on implementing systems and processes to help better serve customers. Harrelson has more than 20 years’ experience in the postproduction industry across VFX, dailies, production, and sales, including six years working at Deluxe. He brings with him an incredibly diverse set of skills that he developed as both a client–having worked for more than a decade as a post supervisor and post producer for series and features–and a vendor.
New director of business development Borowsky brings her wide-ranging experience garnered over 19 years working in tentpole features, indies, and commercials to expand Light Iron’s business development team, which is led by Katie Fellion. Borowsky began her career with Technicolor, and through her work she’s developed strong relationships with studio clients as well as creatives including cinematographers and directors, making for a strong synergy with Panavision. Based in Los Angeles, Borowsky hails from Atlanta, and her new role will include a focus on developing the Southeast market.
When production halted earlier this year in the face of worldwide lockdowns to combat the spread of COVID-19, projects already in post had to adapt on the fly to take their workflows remote. “From the beginning, it’s been our mission at Light Iron to guide our clients through postproduction’s constantly changing technologies and workflows so they can focus on telling their stories without compromise,” said Peter Cioni, co-managing director at Light Iron. “Having long embraced mobile tools and remote collaboration, we were able to seamlessly transition our artists and clients offsite, bringing our in-facility experience right to their homes without missing a beat–or a deadline.”
Light Iron was an early pioneer of mobile dailies workflows, and the company continues to innovate with Outpost Remote Control (RC), the latest generation of its Outpost near-set dailies solution, which now allows a Light Iron dailies colorist to control the complete system remotely, regardless of geographic distance. The Outpost RC system can be quickly deployed in a production office, data center, or wherever is convenient for the production, providing all the benefits of a real-time near-set solution without requiring a colorist to be physically present on set. This allows the production to keep their on-site crew numbers down–which remains a priority during COVID-19–while simultaneously giving cinematographers the flexibility to collaborate with any dailies colorist on Light Iron’s roster, regardless of the colorist’s location.
Light Iron has also expanded its offline editorial rental solutions to bring the experience of its New York location’s in-facility offerings directly to clients, equipping them with a complete home installation that’s securely connected back to Light Iron’s main infrastructure. Light Iron’s white-glove delivery provides everything the client will need, from the furniture to the hardware–including an SDI confidence monitor–with comprehensive, step-by-step support to get the system up and running. Once set up, the client’s system connects to and reads from the secure Avid Nexis server that’s housed at Light Iron, with access to the same trusted infrastructure, support, and shared storage experience they would enjoy if working in the facility. Light Iron’s remote offline editorial rentals are currently being deployed in the New York City area, with targeted regional expansion in early 2021.
For DI and finishing, Light Iron provides a variety of synchronous (live) and asynchronous review solutions to meet clients’ needs. Projects that Light Iron has recently finished with remote workflows include the series What We Do in the Shadows, Next, The Queen’s Gambit, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Social Distance, and the features One Night In Miami, Wander Darkly, and What the Constitution Means to Me.
Additionally, since late June, Light Iron has again been hosting clients in person. The company is committed to providing a safe, flexible, and efficient experience, and has instituted new safety protocols for clients working in-facility, including comprehensive cleaning programs, updated food-service procedures, and strict occupancy limits and appropriate distancing.
“Seth, Phil, and Laura bring a huge amount of industry experience. They each will boost the creative insight we can give our clients and put us in the best position to continue charting our course through and beyond the disruption caused by COVID-19,” said Cioni.
“Despite the significant challenges presented in recent months, we’re optimistic about both the future of our industry and our unique capabilities for supporting our customers,” Cioni added. “As post and production continue to evolve, Light Iron’s focus remains where it’s always been, on empowering our clients’ creativity. We’re constantly developing new ways of working to meet their needs, and we’re always here to help them find — or create — the best solution for their individual projects. With this expansion in our services and staff, our clients can take advantage of more flexibility than ever before and enjoy a seamless postproduction experience that ensures they’ll see their vision from set to screen, no matter where or how they choose to work.”
