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Who is Jump Studios?
Jump Studios is an innovative company dedicated purely to original creative, broadcast design, visual effects, high-end finishing and now, with the addition of our SpeedGrade DI Suite, colour grading. We're ready to collaborate with you and take your project to the next level.
Partners Jeff August and Brian Vos head up Jump Studios with more than 50 years of experience and provide the creative and project management expertise that clients like ABC, NBC, ESPN, Star Choice, Shaw Communications, and Bell Canada have come to expect from them.
Jump Studios General Manager Brian Vos, states "we are very pleased to have the ability to service all areas of digital production, and we're looking forward to offering our colour grading services to Canadian producers - from corporate and commercial to programming and features."
Creative Director Jeff August leads a team of award-winning designers and animators both locally and internationally, to bring you fresh talent with the creative flair to complement your ideas. Recognizing that you work in a world of deadlines, it's only natural that our studio is designed for a workflow that is efficient and reliable, using technically advanced equipment like SpeedGrade DI.
SpeedGrade is a real-time, non-destructive colour-grading system that not only grades; it conforms, provides effects, and offers a full set of finishing tools for an unlimited range of resolutions. From HD all the way to 4K your material can be handled in real time, creating an efficient pipeline for footage to be converted to any file format required for offline editing. Once your edit is complete, SpeedGrade simply works from the EDL for final conform and colour correction using the original raw data. Producers can now feel comfortable shooting with any camera, such as RED, ARRI and several others that record digital raw information. This is because digital footage can now be treated to the same level of quality of 35mm film with a more efficient workflow.
To see a sample of what Jump Studios did with SpeedGrade on the Velocity spot, click on this download link.
Through Jump Studios, producers now have access to Emmy award winning expertise with front to back services including show openings, titling, online finishing and colour grading. We're passionate about what we do and take pride in pleasing our clients.
To find out more about Jump Studios and to discuss how we can work with you, within your budget, please contact Brian Vos at 403.355.0053 or by email at brian@jumpstudio.tv. |
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Imarion Adopts Autodesk Smoke and Autodesk Lustre to Meet Growing Client Demands
Things were different then. When Alex Olegnowicz moved up, geographically, that is, from his native Mexico City, Mexico to Toronto, Canada, digital editing and effects systems were still in rather short supply. Still, Olegnowicz founded Imarion (pronounced EE-mary-on) in 1995 on what he now refers to as "low-end" systems such as Adobe Premiere and Avid Xpress NT software. If the systems were low-end, however, the work Imarion produced was not. Successful projects enabled Olegnowicz to upgrade his systems and, by 1998, to add online editing to Imarion's services.
Over a dozen years later, the company continues to thrive with recent projects such as executive producer, James Cameron's controversial The Lost Tomb of Jesus, directed by Simcha Jacobovici and produced for Discovery Channel, and the compelling documentary Sex Slaves, for CBC and PBS, as well as a growing list of independent feature films and commercial projects. In 2003, Imarion added two Autodesk Smoke software system to its technology arsenal and, just last year, it brought in an Autodesk Lustre software systems to provide top-quality color correction and DI.
"It was around 2000 when we started getting more and more requests to do online projects in high definition," says Olegnowicz. "We knew we were going to have to make a change, but we took our time and evaluated all the systems. In the end, we selected Smoke HD because it was simply the best system out there. It was definitely a learning experience, but from the start everybody was really impressed. As soon as we got Smoke, we could do stuff that literally no other system could do. Smoke gave us powerful rendering, fast and sophisticated color correction, and the ability to create visual effects directly on the online system. It wasn't that long before we decided to get a second system. It's been a stormy relationship at times, but it keeps getting better."
If Autodesk Smoke is getting better, it is largely due to demanding users like Olegnowicz and Imarion, who have continued to see their fortunes rise, in the intervening years, with larger and higher profile projects coming through the door each month. Olegnowicz is quick to affirm that Imarion's Smoke systems have, so far, kept pace with the company's growth.
"As luck would have it, around the time we started getting really, really busy, Autodesk brought out Smoke HD on Linux," he explains. "Before long, Autodesk also started integrating more of the best features of Autodesk Flame software into Smoke, which has helped us out a lot. In addition to that, Smoke is now able to read non-EDL formats, such as AAF and XML, which means we can bring in projects from lots of other systems. The integration with XML has been particularly well done. That is invaluable in our business."
Imarion began color grading with the Autodesk Lustre high-performance color-grading system in late 2007, and Olegnowicz admits to being impressed with the results.
"We noticed a shift in the market," he says. "Our clients were demanding more flexibility in color correction, especially in higher-end documentaries and independent films. This is a brand new and very desirable market for us, and it's where the integration between Smoke and Lustre works really well."
"A lot of independent filmmakers have stopped shooting 16 and 35 mm film in favor of tapeless workflows and HD," Olegnowicz continues. "With Smoke and Lustre, we can bring all that footage straight into Smoke, and then send it seamlessly into Lustre to grade the footage. We recently worked on OneXOne, a high-profile charity gala on Canadian network CTV, which featured Matt Damon. It was vital that the color correction was very precise on that project, and we got the job done with Smoke."
While OneXOne was the most recent, James Cameron's The Lost Tomb of Jesus was certainly Imarion's largest project to date. Chronicling the momentous (and accidental) discovery of what may be the burial crypt of Jesus Christ, and his family. The Lost Tomb of Jesus was shot all over the world and in a multitude of formats.
"We were dealing with PAL, 24p, 25p, 23.98, 59.94, you name it," says Olegnowicz somewhat ruefully. "The only system that could digitize everything and get it into the timeline to be worked on was Smoke. Smoke was the right tool for the job because it enabled us to play back all different frame rates. We had all the necessary tools, and Smoke also enabled us to composite right in the timeline. That was all incredibly handy."
Looking to the future, Imarion has a growing interest in independent films, especially those using tapeless cameras. According to Olegnowicz, Autodesk Lustre will be a big help:
"We have worked on three independent films so far. I don't want to give anything away, but the projects are very different in nature and subject. Teddy Bear is an independent feature about a serial killer. Fire & Fury is an absolutely beautifully shot short-period film. And, The Limits is a drama that was graded in Lustre. All three projects were conformed in Smoke, moved to Lustre for color correction, and then rendered back to Smoke with ease. For The Limits especially, they wanted to imbue the film with different textures for different locations. Lustre software's ability to play back from the Smoke storage in real time is just amazing. We don't have to recapture anything. That is a great advantage to this workflow."
Source:Digital Media Online. All Rights Reserved
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