Mumbai: In an increasingly competitive market, broadcasters and post-production facilities are differentiating and growing their businesses by investing in Autodesk visual effects and finishing solutions. These solutions provide digital artists and editors with the professional tools necessary to quickly produce high-value content. Facilities that have benefited from recent purchases of Autodesk systems include BSkyB, Sight Entertainment, Mere Mortals, E3 Post and Channel 4.
BSkyB facility’s creative facilities and operations manager Nassreen Akhtar says, "On our major projects, you simply couldn’t accomplish our 2D/3D work in any other environment. Since we moved to Flame, things have just become better and better, especially with Linux, which has made a huge positive difference in our production pipeline… Whether it’s our own in-house producers or clients from external production companies and agencies, Flame and Smoke help us accomplish collaborative, top-quality work at a speed difficult to match."
Sight Entertainment owner and effects supervisor Yuzaburo Saito says, "Sight Entertainment is a growing visual effects studio. After our first demonstration of the Smoke capabilities, our decision to convert from a competitive product to Autodesk was simple… Smoke has been instrumental in providing the speed necessary for compositing 2D and 3D elements and finishing. The system has accelerated our workflow and has given us the confidence to solve tricky shots in real time, right in front of the client."
Mere Mortals managing director Steve Walmsley similarly believes, "In addition to work from clients in the thriving regional film and advertising industry, our new Smoke system is attracting a substantial amount of business from outside the North East of Britain. Big budget productions filmed in Newcastle have traditionally sent their editing work south because local facilities weren’t available. The technical capabilities of Smoke, with its real-time, mixed-resolution interactivity for all types of creative editorial work, offer film and post-production clients everything they need. Smoke allows us to compete with rivals across the UK and gives our business the edge required to win more jobs."
United Kingdom-based Channel 4 has invested in a Smoke system for its post-production arm called 124 Facilities. The system was selected after rigorous testing alongside systems from other vendors. Smoke will be used to finish trailers for three channels: Channel 4, E4 and More4.
"We were finding that more and more finishing was being done out of house, so we decided to invest in a finishing/effects system, enabling us to grow our business by offering these services in-house," said 124 managing director Tony Chamberlain. "Smoke proved to have all the right tools for our needs and, from a user point of view, it’s the system that the editors and clients are most happy with."
