• About
  • Archives
  • Advertising

NYCPPNEWS

NYC Production & Post News

  • Home
  • Directory Listings
    • The Standby Program
    • Brooklyn College
    • Brooklyn Workforce Innovations
    • Columbia University Film Program
    • Downtown Community Television Center
    • Electronic Arts Intermix
    • Film Biz Recycling
    • Freelancers Union
    • Independent Filmmaker Project
    • Manhattan Edit Workshop
    • Mediakite Training Center
    • New York Film Academy
    • New York Film/Video Council
    • New York Institute of Technology
    • New York Production Alliance
    • New York Video School
    • New York Women in Film & Television
    • NYU Film & Television
    • Post New York Alliance
    • The Independent Film School
    • International Film Institute of New York
    • The New School – Documentary Studies
    • The New School — MA in Media Studies
    • Union Docs
    • Upstate Independents
    • Syracuse Film Office
Home » FuseFX Goes Gotham, Makes Its Broadway Debut

FuseFX Goes Gotham, Makes Its Broadway Debut

This past week, FuseFX opened its doors on Lower Broadway, making a bet that the New York post scene is ready to take things to the next level.

Burbank-based FuseFX LA, which specializes in visual effects services for television, features and commercials, has already seeded FuseFX New York with work to keep it busy, including effects for NBC’s hit series The Blacklist as well as POWERS, a live-action show based on a comic book series. The latter show is for the new Sony PlayStation network, which debuts next month.

(Hopefully Sony will pull things together soon, as not only did Sony Pictures take a well-publicized attack, but the Sony PlayStation Store was inaccessible for a while this past Sunday due to an attack by a group calling itself ‘The Lizard Squad’. ed_”Is it just me, or are we starting to live in a time when the comics are bleeding into reality?”)

FuseFX’s LA shop handles shows including Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and American Horror Story. With the current growth in television production, FuseFX is following the opportunity by expanding further, with not only the New York shop but another full-service facility in Vancouver that opened at the same time. FuseFX, British Columbia currently handles Backstrom for Fox and The Returned for A&E.

FuseFX is (l to r) Jason Fotter Co-Founder/ CTO / VFX Supervisor; David Altenau Founder / CEO / VFX Supervisor; Tim Jacobsen Co-Founder/ Executive Producer; Greg Anderson Creative Director / Sr. VFX Supervisor and manager, New York offices. Photo credit: Dan Ochiva

At the open house for the New York shop, CTO and co-founder Jason Fotter allowed that while it wasn’t the main reason, New York’s 30-percent postproduction tax credit helped in making their minds up about heading East.

Both facilities, we’re told, include 2D and 3D visual effects, 3D animation, compositing, finishing, matte painting, cosmetic enhancement and pre-visualization. The company though wants to do things from start to finish, so in the works are dailies, mastering, and full DI.

FuseFX LA is an example of how the other sites will build out. Assimilate’s Scratch Lab helps them automate all the many processes going through, from dailies to color grading, VFX, finishing and mastering. CTO Fotter has said that he found no other viable options for what they wanted to do.

Holding down positions as Compositing Supervisors at the 584 Broadway shop are Ariel Altman (left) and Dave Reynolds. Photo: Dan Ochiva

The Foundry’s Nuke is another critical piece of software for production, used extensively at FuseFX New York and the other sites. Locally, networked Dell PCs tie into a large and growing EMC Isilon system.

Greg Anderson is on had to lead the New York operations as Senior Visual Effects Supervisor and Head of Production. Anderson’s background includes senior visual effects roles with 1stAveMachine, Ring of Fire and Sony Pictures Imageworks, and credits including Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Spider-Man 2 and The Day After Tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

  • About
  • Archives
  • Advertising
Copyright © 2021 NYCPPNEWS | Site Built with Studio Press Genesis