Veteran location manager Aine Furey will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) at the 8th Annual LMGI Awards. With a career spanning almost four decades and over 400 hours of screen time, Furey can easily be called a pioneer who was instrumental in establishing Ontario as an attractive production environment for film and television production. The LMGI Awards “Celebrate the Where” gala will be held on Saturday, October 23, at 2 p.m. PT, presented, via a digital ceremony on YouTube.
LMGI Awards chair John Rakich noted, “Aine was a mainstay in local production from its early days of small local productions to the thriving global production center Ontario is today. The Location Managers Guild International is proud to have Aine Furey accept our Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Furey’s many credits include Canadian Bacon, Relic Hunter, Lost Girl, Mutant X, The Littlest Hobo, Night Heat and Due South. She helped established a path for location professionalism in not just establishing industry practices and standards but in the legacy of dozens of careers she trained and mentored. Even now in her retirement, she still does the occasional bit of location scouting for productions in need and is always helping the local film commissions in creating image packages.
Furey grew up in Dublin at a time before television existed in Ireland so going to “the films” was a big deal and it became a lifelong fascination. Her family moved to Los Angeles in 1959 where her first step into “showbiz” was working at the Mission Playhouse while in high school. After graduation, she returned to London and began to get work as an actress. That came to an abrupt end when she was injured in a car accident, which led to her lifelong career in location work.
The LMGI Awards honor the outstanding and creative visual contributions by location professionals in film, television and commercials from around the globe. The LMGI Awards also recognize outstanding service by film commissions for their support “above and beyond” during the production process.
This year, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 8th Annual LMGI Awards will, once again, be presented on a digital platform, streaming to a worldwide and more inclusive audience.
Avid completes acquisition of Wolftech
Avid®, known for software solutions for professional media production, has completed the acquisition of Wolftech Broadcast Solutions, a leader in cloud-based multiplatform news planning, production and publishing solutions.
The acquisition enables Avid to combine its digital-first, end-to-end media solution with Wolftech’s expertise in story-centric workflow management. News organizations will be able to increase efficiency and accelerate story delivery through enhanced remote collaboration and multiplatform amplification.
Avid CEO Wellford Dillard stated, “Wolftech is unquestionably on the leading edge of where the industry is going, and this acquisition demonstrates Avid’s commitment to transform news, sports, and live production workflows. We are delighted to welcome Wolftech into the Avid family.”
Wolftech CEO Arne Berven added, “We were focused on finding a partner that could accelerate the adoption of our platform globally. We explored a number of possibilities, but when we talked to Avid, we knew it was the right match.”
The closing of the acquisition follows Avid’s announcement on October 7 that the company had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wolftech.
With this acquisition, Avid deepens the integration between the two toolsets while continuing to embrace an open approach in partnering with a wide range of media production tools and newsroom systems. Existing Wolftech customers will benefit from Avid’s global scale for customer support and professional services.
Ian Axton, head of production operations for ITV News, said, “As a customer of both Avid and Wolftech we’re excited about the benefits this acquisition will bring to our users and our business. Wolftech has transformed... Read More