Ingenuity Studios, a VFX house serving feature film, episodic TV, music video and advertising clients, is now part of Streamland Media’s global postproduction offerings. With four locations spanning the U.S. and Canada, Ingenuity Studios further expands Streamland Media’s resources for content creators worldwide, providing customized services from its picture division, Picture Shop; visual effects division, Ghost VFX; sound division, Formosa Group; and marketing division, Picture Head.
Ingenuity Studios’ work can be seen in feature films including Many Saints of Newark, A Star is Born, Get Out, and Booksmart, and in Emmy-nominated series such as Hacks, The Walking Dead, Cowboy Bebop, and Euphoria and the newly released Paper Girls.
Founded in 2004 as a studio born out of music video visual effects, Ingenuity quickly became a go-to facility for top artists and directors, encompassing collaborations with the likes of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons and Lady Gaga and more recently Billie Eilish, BTS, and Shawn Mendes. Using skills developed in the trenches of short-form content, Ingenuity later shifted into high-end offerings in the film and episodic space.
“There is no limit to what we can do together,” said Streamland Media CEO Bill Romeo. “Streamland Media and Ingenuity Studios are aligned in our creative-driven philosophy and dedication to our extraordinary teams. We are all committed to facilitating powerful, creative and connected collaboration to advance the vision of storytellers.”
David Lebensfeld, founding partner of Ingenuity Studios, noted, “From the beginning, we have been committed to building a studio that serves our clients at the highest level possible and we are able to do that with a team of incredible artists and technologists. The team at Streamland Media shares our passion for storytelling while creating a service level second to none, and we look forward to being part of a community that supports our vision and provides our clients an innovative global network of talent and technology.”
Ingenuity Studios, headquartered in Los Angeles, has offices in New York, Vancouver, and Atlanta.
Trive Capital and Five Crowns Capital supported the deal. David Stinnett, partner at Trive Capital, said, “Streamland and Trive are strategically acquiring industry leading businesses centered around unparalleled creative talent and integrating into a single, global platform to continuously enhance the value proposition we offer our customers. Further, as VFX services are becoming increasingly important to post-production, we look forward to leveraging Ingenuity’s stellar reputation as we continue providing state-of-the-art VFX work in support of new and existing customers’ high-quality content offerings.”
South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users
South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers.
It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information.
Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022.
It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers.
South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behavior, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved.
The commission said Meta amassed sensitive information by analyzing the pages the Facebook users liked or the advertisements they clicked on.
The company categorized ads to identify users interested in themes such as specific religions, same-sex and transgender issues, and issues related to North Korean escapees, said Lee Eun Jung, a director at the commission who led the investigation on Meta.
"While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent," Lee said.
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