light iron Archives — NYCPPNEWS

Light Iron’s Michael Cioni Does a 6K DI Diary

We’re always happy to post something from our friend Michael Cioni, CEO of Light Iron. He’s released a new video on how his facility went about the 6K DI for the RED Digital Cinema short “Closed Set”. We were also pleased that the eloquent Mr. Cioni was the author of our first Talks from the Top […]

Light Iron Taps Jean Lane to Oversee NY Operations

Light Iron NY builds up its management staff with the addition of Jean Lane, who was most recently at Goldcrest Post. Lane will manage the Soho-based facility, which recently doubled its size, as first announced in CEO Michael Cioni’s Talk from the Top column…

Light Iron CEO Cioni Asks if New York Production is Up to Challenge

Our new series, Talks from the Top, kicks off with one of the great educators in modern media management, Light Iron CEO Michael Cioni. Michael shares an interesting opinion about the relevancy of post in New York, while also breaking news of an extensive expansion of this Broadway digs…

Digital Cinema Society Makes it to New York, Shows How to Make Money with Stock Footage

It’s not often that LA-based Digital Cinema Society President James Mathers makes it to the East Coast for an event. But this past week at B & H’s presentation space, he headed a panel that looked into how stock footage offers income opportunities for cinematographers, as well as trends in production and post that will impact […]

Michael Cioni Sees the Future

I wrote an article profiling Light Iron’s Michael Cioni for the re-launch of Nick Dager’s Digital Cinema Report website. I enjoyed interviewing Cioni. He’s lively in person or over the phone, and he’s just moved here to oversee the opening of Light Iron’s East coast headquarters in Soho. Cioni has a compelling argument to make as to…

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.