Nice Shoes Launches Creative Studio

Nice Shoes has opened the Nice Shoes Creative Studio headed by executive producer Geraint Owen. Joining Owen are newly signed creative director/director James Coulson, creative director/director Harry Dorrington and VFX/animation director Steve Parish. Entering its 18th year as a shop known for its color grading and finishing, Nice Shoes has expanded its creative capabilities and constructed a new workspace for the Creative Studio team on the company’s NYC premises.

“We make stuff, and the Creative Studio combines the best thinking and the best making,” said Owen. “It’s start to finish, immersive storytelling through purposeful design, with the highest regard for craft–what we call ‘Content by Design’.”

As founder of design and live-action company Süperfad, Owen spent the last 12 years making work for a long list of clients including Adidas, X-Games, Target, Bloomberg, American Express and Durex. He’s known for assembling teams that create smart, eye-popping solutions. Owen joined Nice Shoes in mid-2013 and began forming his approach and talented new team.

Coulson began his career at the BBC in London. He’s led teams in all aspects of production and post for Imaginary Forces, Psyop and B Reel in New York and oversaw the re-brand of The Sci Fi Channel to Syfy. His clients include BMW, Nike, HBO, IBM, Def Jam and MTV.

Dorrington is a creative with a reputation for graphics and animation, a shelf full of notable awards, and an Emmy nomination. His career has spanned the BBC, English & Pocket (UK), Lambie-Nairn (UK), R/Greenberg Associates and Gravity/Rhino in NY.

Parish has vast experience in both television and film, having worked at QuietMan, Smoke & Mirrors, and The Mill. His endeavors span campaigns for Pepsi, GE, AT&T, HBO, Coca Cola, Spike Lee, and The Beatles Rockband “Abbey Road” commercial. At Industrial Light & Magic, Parish worked on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and more recently Elysium and Thor: The Dark World while at Whisky Tree.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.