By Carolyn Giardina
NEW YORK—In its fourth year in business, New York-based rhinofx has expansion plans on the horizon. The visual effects house, which currently works on commercial, film, TV and video games projects, is now offering 3-D pre-visualization services to agency clients. Additionally, in response to a 40 percent growth in workflow since opening, the company is taking over the entire floor of its midtown space, which should total roughly 5,000 square feet when completed. Construction is expected to begin next month and finish in the early summer.
"Pre-vis is a rapidly growing field," said rhinofx executive producer Camille Pirolo Geier. "The pre-vis can show lensing, angles, timing, rough animation, camera movement and editorial, and works out all kinds of creative and logistical problems in advance of the shoot or commencement of CG work."
"We have actually been doing pre-vis work since we opened," related rhinofx partner/executive producer Rick Wagonheim. "We use it to demonstrate our vision to potential clients. But the directors, the agencies and the agency clients all find it invaluable for making production go more smoothly. It eliminates the unknowns and the guesswork, and involves the client at the earliest stages of pre-production and production."
Wagonheim added that pre-vis will be offered with the company’s existing tools and talent "as a service to help a director sell his vision to the agency when pitching a job, to aid an agency in selling a concept to a client, or to plan the visual effects portion of an awarded job." He said that there would always be creative director leadership for quality control on these projects.
Recent jobs for which rhinofx did the pre-vis include Cadillac’s "Magic" via Chemistri, Troy, Mich., directed by Nick Piper of Backyard Productions, Venice, Calif.; and Lugz’s "Shadow Flex" out of Avrett, Free & Ginsberg, New York, a fully CG spot directed by rhinofx creative director Harry Dorrington.
The new space will be used for growth and creating a more comfortable environment for clients; it is currently occupied by sister shop Rhinoceros, which is acquiring additional space on another floor in the building. Likely, the staff size will also expand.
The toolset is expected to total roughly 27 seats, including primary 3-D package Alias’ Maya, as well as Softimage XSI, Adobe’s After Effects, and Discreet’s Inferno and Combustion.
The company is also upgrading its server and network to accommodate growth. "We purchased four 3Com 3824 Gigabit switches for us to upgrade from a 100mb network to a Gigabit environment," reported Geier. "In addition, we purchased a Maximum Throughput Sledgehammer NAS server with 2 Terabytes of storage to expand our throughput and storage capacity. We also upgraded our artists’ workstations from dual Pentium 3s to dual Xeons with BOXX 3DBOXX S series workstations."
“Heretic” and “Maria” Set As Red Carpet Premieres At AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that Heretic, the psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant, and Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, will round out the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI Fest. The Heretic Gala Screening will take place on Thursday, October 24, and the Maria Gala Screening will be held on Saturday, October 26. The complete Red Carpet Premieres section includes the world premieres of Music By John Williams, Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. The full lineup for AFI Fest 2024 will be unveiled on October 1.
“At the heart of AFI Fest is an unwavering dedication to celebrating the best in global cinema--together,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “We look forward to uniting artists and audiences once again to be inspired by the art form in a powerful sense of community.”
Heretic follows two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (portrayed by Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The film is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and produced by Stacey Sher, Beck, Woods, Julia Glausi and Jeanette Volturno. The film will be released nationwide by A24 on November 8.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria presents a tumultuous and beautiful depiction of one of the world’s most renowned artists and reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days in Paris, as Callas (Jolie)... Read More