With production underway on Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 and post-production continuing on The Smurfs 2, Sony Pictures Digital Productions (SPDP) in Culver City, Calif., announces that it is bringing the studio’s award-winning Sound Department and Colorworks, the studio’s digital intermediate facility, under its umbrella. SPDP will now offer a host of post-production services to the professional community, including visual effects and computer animation, sound mixing and editorial and digital mastering, color grading, and film restoration.
The announcement was made by Bob Osher, President, Sony Pictures Digital Productions. According to Osher, “These changes to the production organization will help us continue to provide our partners with the same world class suite of facilities and services they have come to expect from Sony Pictures Studios over the years, and I am thrilled to welcome the expertise of Colorworks and the studio’s Sound Department, with their incredible teams of experienced professionals, to Sony Pictures Digital Productions.”
These changes come following the announcement that Gary Martin, President of Sony Pictures Studios, will retire in 2013. Martin was responsible for opening the lot’s Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage and developing Sony Pictures Studios’ Sound Department into a world-leading facility boasting a stable of Oscar-winning Sound Mixers and Sound Supervisors. Along with Sony Pictures Technologies President, Chris Cookson, Martin opened the studio’s digital intermediate facility, which introduced the industry’s first fully-4K workflow. Osher and Randy Lake, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Sony Pictures Imageworks, will work closely with the Sound Department’s Richard Branca and Tom McCarthy, and Colorworks’ Chris Holt, in managing the studio’s combined post-production operations.
Sony Pictures Colorworks’ 14,000-square-foot facility, housed at Sony Pictures Studio’s Stage 6, features world renowned colorists and state-of-the-art technology offering real-time, 4K processing in a full digital workflow for top filmmakers from across the industry. The Sony Pictures Sound Department offers some of the world’s most sought-after sound facilities, and top sound editors with a combined six Oscar wins to the their credit, including the 2013 winner for Best Sound Editing, Zero Dark Thirty. Sony Pictures Imageworks is the Academy Award–winning visual effects unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions known for live-action visual effects, CG animation, and 3-D imagery. Sony Pictures Animation is following its worldwide comedy hits—Hotel Transylvania, The Smurfs and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs—with The Smurfs 2 in July 2013 and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 in September 2013.
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production, acquisition and distribution; television production, acquisition and distribution; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; worldwide television networks; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of entertainment in 159 countries.
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