Rebranded Napoleon Celebrates 30 Years

It’s not a typical anniversary. In an industry full of companies that don’t often make it through their first decade, previz house Napoleon has notched 30 years in the commercials business. And they’re still going strong. The proof? A recent move into a huge new space in the Flatiron District, one that offers new opportunities, like room enough to install a mo cap system and green screen stage.

Napoleon has expanded to a full portfolio of products and services that includes art, audio, broadcast and digital/content. Why now?

“If a company isn’t changing, it’s dying,” in the words of founder Marty Napoleon.

Napoleon’s green screen stage is ringed by a 12 camera Vicon Bonita mo cap system.

The new digs, a 14,450-square-foot space, was built out by first gutting Kate Spade’s former offices. The room offers enough room so that new projects can each be in their own layout. Napoleon’s open-air workspace also holds some 50-plus creative directors, animators, editors, designers, illustrators, modelers, compositors, scripters, character artists, motion-graphic artists, producers and marketers.

Other features include a 12-camera Vicon Bonita motion-capture system, green-screen stage, edit and audio suites, along with all the usual amenities, such as a “sleekly modern” kitchen.

Napoleon, which started out as a test commercial house, now does “just about anything”.

Napoleon’s new logo – from Brooklyn’s Makewell shop – was ‘deconstructed’ into eight diagonal bars for today’s digital world.

To better emphasize that capability – and freshen up the logo and website – the company turned to Brooklyn-based design and branding studio Makewell. With efforts headed up by the company’s creative director Jonathan Motzkin, Napoleon’s iconic red “N” was “deconstructed” for the digital world. Motzkin also recommended simplifying the name from “The Napoleon Group” to “Napoleon.” The new website design was made much more dynamic, and even features something that really proves a company has changed in our web-centric world – there’s a new URL, napoleongroup.com

About Dan Ochiva

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

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.