Tired of cutting in dingy, back-lot edit bays that are depressing to editors, directors, creatives and clients? At Cinelicious we believe inspired environments foster good creative, happy people, and better content. Perched high above Melrose and a block from Paramount our new Creative Editorial and VFX LOFT boasts 270 degree views Hollywood, modern design, cutting-edge tools, and is steps from Cafe Gratitude, LOU, Osteria Mamma, and many other delectable Larchmont eateries. Or, as one post supervisor recently commented, “It’s like editing at the W”.

We are currently making available all or a portion of the LOFT space to clients who have chosen Cinelicious talented Artists for their Color Grading, VFX/Finishing, or Feature DI. Editing at The LOFT, combined with our interconnected 4K DI theater and client friendly Flame and Color suites a block down the street provides a creative campus that is unique to the industry.

Details:

Workspaces

EDIT 1
• Avid and Final Cut on shared or local SAN storage
• 3D Stereoscopic Editorial with 3D Monitoring
• Flame 2012
• Edit Desk, Client Couch, Producer Desk, Bathroom / Shower, Private Balcony / Dining

EDIT 2
• Avid and Final Cut on shared or local SAN storage
• Edit Desk, Client Couch, Producer Office & Bathroom, Private Balcony

PRODUCER / WORKSTATION BULLPEN
• 4 x Graphics / Assistant edit stations in the bullpen area that can either be configured as a producer bullpen or assistant edit / assistant VFX stations.

Data & Tech

DATA
• 36TB Shared or Local SAN storage via switched fiber, and ethernet throughout.

VIDEO
• HD-SDI HD Video Routed to any Monitor
• 50″ Plasma 3D Capable Broadcast Monitors

BACK-UP
• LTO-4 Tape Back-up Station

INTERNET
• Business-Class high-dpeed wired/wireless with static IP

Security

STUDIO APPROVED
• The LOFT is security approved by the MPAA for work on Studio features

CCTV
• 2x CCTV Security cameras on 24-hr recording on servers at the main facility
• Biometric workstation login.

Amenities

GOURMET KITCHEN
• Wolf Stove, Sub-Zero Fridge, Dishwasher.

BATHROOMS
• Clean Modern Bathrooms (x2)
• Shower/Bathtub

LONG NIGHTS?
• Comfortably Sleeps 2

PARKING
• Secure, Direct-Access, Covered Parking Available

CLEANING
• Regular Cleaning and Plant Care Service

Hollywood, CA, December 7th, 2011 — Vrrrrrooooom! The Chrysler SRT launch video shot and directed by Michele Vittorio Ghersi highlights the energy, excitement and beauty of the 2012 SRT Line-Up, and Cinelicious was proud to provide color services to help the already striking work pop & sizzle, as well as seamlessly integrate the CG and Live-Action elements provided by Big Block.

Chrysler Corporation:
Ralph Gilles, CEO & Sr. Designer SRT / Dodge Motorsports
Beth Paretta, Director Of Marketing & Operations SRT Brand & Motorsports

Production & VFX: Big Block
Michele Vittorio Ghersi, Director/Cinematographer/co Creative Director
Mark Glaser, co Creative Director / CG Director
Kay Rough, Senior VFX Producer
Tom Connors, CG Supervisor

Color: Cinelicious
Steve Rodriguez, Color Grading
Paul Korver, EP
Reggie Diaz, Telecine Producer

Matt Thorne, Music and Sound Design

Ben.
 

Ben’s Parents Dancing.
 

 
Cinelicious Diversifies Into VFX With Hire Of Ben Looram; Launches Mobile “Take Out” Services
 
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., November 11, 2011, — Cinelicious, which opened last year as a telecine/finishing shop (SHOOTonline, 3/3/10), has extended its reach into visual effects and further into finishing with the addition of noted VFX supervisor and lead Flame artist Ben Looram. In turn, Looram and company founder Paul Korver have also launched Cinelicious Take Out, a new model of talent-driven pop-up-style visual effects and color creative delivered to any location.
 
Korver started Cinelicious with an eye to broadening the company into the full post spectrum. Today, Cinelicious’ Hollywood studio provides services for commercial and feature clients including color, telecine, high-resolution film scanning, restoration, and the new Flame suite for VFX and finish. As with set editing or shooting on location, Cinelicious Take Out provides the talent and technology wherever needed by the client, providing flexibility, faster turn-arounds, and a greater integration of creative teams and process.
 
“With Take Out we’re not just providing on-set postproduction rentals. Instead, we are bringing top creative talent and a high-end finishing and color solution into our clients’ preferred place of work whether it’s at the agency, editorial company, on set or at our studio,” explained Korver.
 
The Cinelicious Take Out concept was beta tested by Looram setting up pop-up post at a number of production companies, agencies and editorial houses including Bully Pictures on Casio for The Richards Group, Cosmo Street on Activision for 72andSunny and on the upcoming Growth Films feature The Pursuit of Loneliness.
 
Looram has had a hand in assorted pieces of award-winning work over the years. He was a Flame artist at a52 from 1998-’05. There he was part of the team honored with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Titles Design for HBO’s Carnivale. From 2005-’07 Looram was a VFX supervisor at Sway where he contributed to such projects as the Chris Milk-directed U2/Green Day music video “The Saints Are Coming,” which earned a VES award for Outstanding Effects In A Music Video. In 2007 and 2008, Looram was perma-lance at Sea Level, and was hired by Butcher as a consultant to start the company’s VFX division. There he worked on Toyota Sienna’s online campaign “Swagger Wagon” directed by Jody Hill (Caviar Content) for Saatchi & Saatchi LA. In 2010, Looram moved over to Animal as a staff VFX supervisor. Among his Animal-based projects were Audi 8’s Kenny G “Riot Suppressor” Super Bowl teaser directed by Hungry Man’s Bryan Buckley for Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco.

Opening a boutique post house with a focus on film projects could be perceived as risky in this day and age, but Paul Korver, the principal officer at Cinelicious in Hollywood, believes now is the perfect time to invest in film. “So many people believe that progress is only happening in digital, that no one is innovating in film, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “Film stocks are better, and today’s film-scanning technology allows us to really get the absolute best out of the negative, which is especially important with the coming of 4k projection.”
 
Located in a hip, 1960’s industrial environment a few blocks West of Paramount Studios, Cinelicious currently offers one color room — a DaVinci system connected to a Spirit Datacine and a state-of-the-art Scanity 4K digital film scanner — but a 4K-DLP projection DI Theater with a 25’ screen was under construction at press time.
 
Digital Film Technology’s Scanity is the star of the facility’s workflow. Capable of scanning at 4K at 15 fps, and offering a dynamic range of 3.3 density, the Scanity features an LED lamp source, a Time Delay Integration line sensor and dedicated Field-Programmable Gate-Array image processing.
 
The Scanity is a sprocket-less tension-driven system, utilizing a computer-controlled positioning driven by a photographic sensor that locks each frame in place within 6μ (microns, the size of one 4K pixel), delivering pin-registration accuracy without ever penetrating a perf. This combination of gentleness and accuracy makes the Scanity ideal for not only visual-effects and feature DI scanning, but also archival and restoration work, which often involves delicate materials. (Cinelicious also offers a temperature-controlled vault for the proper storage of nitrate film materials.)
 
The Scanity has a 16mm gate that is prepared for 16mm, Super 16mm and Ultra 16; the latter uses a wide area of regular 16mm (into the perfs) to create an organic 1.85:1 aspect ratio without requiring the lens re-centering that is necessary when converting 16mm cameras to Super 16mm. The scanner can also accommodate 2-perf, 3-perf and 4-perf 35mm and 8-perf 35mm VistaVision.
 
“In choosing a scanner, I wanted the best technology possible, and we took about a year to find the Scanity,” says Korver. “We created a roll of test film that had resolution charts up to 250 line-pairs per millimeter, which is way beyond the range of any scanners [in the 80-150 lp/mm range], and created density wedges from 0 to 4, in addition to shooting registration charts at Panavision Hollywood. I wanted to create a film loop that would push any scanner to the absolute limit of what it could do. Then we graded the results based on resolution, registration and dynamic range.
 
“Registration and resolution was on par with other high-end, pin-registered scanners but what blew us away about the Scanity was it’s dynamic range. Vision 3 stocks have 3.1-3.3 density range. All other scanners were hovering around 2.3 density, the Scanity came in at a whopping 3.3. This should be great news for DPs who want all that information to play with in their DI.”
 
Korver got his start in the business by creating Fifty Foot Films, a company that filmed special events on 35mm, 16mm and Super 8mm. Shortly after opening the doors, Korver had teams shooting private events all around the country, but he was frustrated by post facilities’ insistence on tape and digital workflows. “I was looking for a post house that could simply telecine straight to ProRes files, and back in 2008 I couldn’t find anyone,” he recalls. “Everyone wanted to go to tape first and then charge us for digitizing the tape to ProRes. Instead, we bought an Ursa Diamond telecine, hired a colorist and offered our own post workflow in a high-end studio we built in my garage which is how Cinelicious was born.”
 
Cinelicious began taking on outside clients, and was soon receiving film and hard drives from productions all around the world. “We set up a pipeline that allowed us to offer ColorCast Live sessions, which streamed the color session over the Internet with live Flash Encoding so that the client could watch the session from anywhere in the world,” he says. “We started getting requests for agency supervised finishing at the studio, but I was reluctant given the location. I knew that we had to evolve to a new space to be truly client friendly.”
 
Korver soon moved the work out of his garage and into the full service facility on Melrose Avenue. Just as he wished, Cinelicious works off of a completely data-centric workflow, forgoing the antiquated tape rooms for a large SAN server and Quantum LTO-5 robot for backup and storage.
 
Cinelicious feels like a high-end commercial post house – commercials being part of the company’s client base – but it caters to independent and studio productions as well. “Two years ago, fewer than 10 features had a 4K finish, and they were all $100 million productions,” says Korver. “Now, with the Scanity and our streamlined post workflow, we can bring the cost of a 4K DI down into the range of $20 million productions, maybe even $10 million productions.
 
“We don’t shy away from all-digital filmmakers,” he adds. “We just happen to really, really love film. With artists who are passionate about image making, you don’t hear, ‘I want to make film look like digital’ You hear, ‘I want digital to look like film.’
 
“We are dedicated to supporting filmmakers at the highest level, no matter if the tool of choice is film, digital or 3D. Other might people say we’re crazy for investing in film at all, but I say we’re blazing a trail for DPs to get the most out of their images.”
 
Cinelicious, 5735 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90038, phone: (323) 464-3700, website: http://cinelicious.tv/.

Goodness Mfg, Smith & Jones Films, Trailer Park and Cinelicious team up on the for the latest Toshiba campaign which was named ADWEEK’s “Ad of the Day”. See the full article here: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-toshiba-133487



Agency: Goodness Mfg.
Executive Creative Director: Thomas Adams
Art Director: Neal Desai
Copywriter: Eric Christy Manchester
EVP, Integrated Production: Rupert Samuel
Agency Senior Producer: Akash Khokha
Account Director: Kristyn Dunlap

Production Company: Smith & Jones Films
Director: Ulf Johansson
Executive Producer: Philippa Smith
Director of Photography: Barry Ackroyd

Postproduction: Trailer Park
Editor: Brett Nicoletti
Sound Designer: Gary Zacuto, Mike Rodriguez
Motion Graphics: Clarissa Donlevy, Steve Sikorski
Flame Artist: Kevin McDonald
Final Color: Steve Rodriguez @ Cinelicious
Telecine Producer: Reggie Diaz, @ Cinelicious

Agency: Leo Burnett
AP: Scott Gould
CD: Shane Hutton
Prod Co: White Label
Director: Stefan Arni
Edit: Steve Prestemon & Jon Hopp @ The Whitehouse
VFX: MassMarket
Color: Steve Rodriguez

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
In a bold move that solidifies their commitment to support motion picture film at the highest possible level, Cinelicious today announces their purchase of the SCANITY, a revolutionary new high dynamic range, 2K/4K electronically pin-registered scanner from Digital Film Technology.

Cinelicious’ Scanity comes fully featured and is able to scan both 16mm and 35mm film at up to 4K resolution. While anchoring Cinelicious’s 4K DI pipeline, the Scanity will also bring unique opportunities to their commercial and remastering clients, offering increased quality and efficiency over aging film scanning technologies (Spirit 4K, ARRI and Northlight). Please read on for the full story.

Quest for the Best
Cinelicious principal Paul Korver embarked on a year-long search for the best film scanning technology in the world. He had proprietary resolution test films made up in Prague that resolve 250 lp/mm, dynamic range targets from NY that go from 0-4 density, and shot registration charts at Panavision in Hollywood. He put these targets on a single reel of 35mm film meant to push the scanners to the extreme in 3 categories: resolution, dynamic range and registration/steadiness.

The tests took him to Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany to meet with manufacturers. Where possible he would have the scans done by a post facility. “Our clients are filmmakers, DPs and directors. They don’t get to have their film scanned by the manufacturer… they get it scanned at a post facility so the goal of this test was to get real world results… not numbers on a manufacturer’s spec sheet”. He used the test films to put all the market leading scanners through their paces. The Scanity was the clear winner. For the first time ever you can have:

Dynamic DIs – Full Dynamic Range Scanning
There is 3.1-3.3 density range on motion picture negative. Current technologies (ARRI, Northlight, Spirit 4K) capture only 2.2-2.3 density range. The Scanity’s new TDI Sensor and spectrally optimized LED light source far surpass current technologies with the ability to capture the full 3.3 density range on film. “What that means is that for the first time ever you can capture all the information on your negative. No more sitting in the DI Theater wondering if there’s more information in those highlights” says Korver.

VFX Qualified
VFX houses have the most demanding requirements for their film scans and often specify the shots must be “pin-registered”. This means they must be done from slow ARRI or Northlight scanners (not Spirit Scanners). The Scanity’s electronic pin-registration achieves the same steadiness as an ARRI (6μ = one 4K pixel) but can do so at much faster speeds.

Restoration Optimized
The Scanity is the first mastering-quality, sproketless scanner utilizing optical, touch-free pin registration. Since there are no sprocket teeth pulling the film along, or registration pins that can tear perfs, it is much safer for archival films. Add to this a precision roller-gate that flattens warped films, on-the-fly shrinkage correction, and IR dirt mapping and the Scanity begins to shine as the premiere film scanner to restore precious film libraries.

The Scanity’s Sprocketless Film Path, Audio Scanning Head, and Precision Roller Gate

Radiant Reds
The red layer of film has been difficult to scan without introducing digital noise and varies widely in its spectral response across different film stocks. Most scanning technologies have to pick a red spectrum somewhere in the middle, which is a compromise. The Scanity’s new LED light source is spectrally optimized per stock, resulting in some of the most stunning color rendition ever seen.

IR Dirt Mapping / Dust & Scratch Removal
An infrared camera system is set up to specifically identify any dust and scratches on the film and remove them from the picture, or embed them in the DPX file for later restoration.

Audio Scanning
A high performance audio scanner mounted into the Scanity film path reads analog optical mono and stereo audio tracks off 16 and 35mm film and magnetic audio tracks off 16mm film. Internal processing within the audio scanner compensates for any audio delays that are introduced, as well as any pitch changes due to film shrinkage or other factors.

“People often think that development is only happening in the field of digital acquisition and that no one is innovating in film. But when it comes to the R&D team at Digital Film Technology and Cinelicious that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are proud to be investing in the future of film and our colorists look forward to partnering with filmmakers to create stunning images with this huge leap in technology.”

The Scanity is available immediately at Cinelicious for the following stocks and resolutions:

2K: 16mm, S16mm, 35mm (all perfs), Vistavision,
4K: 16mm, S16mm, 35mm (all perfs), Vistavision

The recently finished Müller-Brockmann inspired “Der Film” Scanning room at Cinelicious. Positive Airflow (dust free). 24/7 Isolated Temperature Control. Pressurized air to scanners. 1/4 Petabyte of NetApp Data Storage. Quantum LTO-5 Robotic Tape Library.

After considering proposals from major studios, celebrated photographer Norman Seeff has selected Cinelicious to head up the complex 4K restoration of his prolific 16mm film library. The archive contains iconic images of culture-shaping music and film luminaries from the 60’s – 80’s that encompass an evolution of his work on “The Sessions Project”, a four-decade-long exploration and documentation of the inner dynamics of creativity in all its forms.

The historical significance of the library cannot be underestimated as it has never before seen images and sound recordings spanning hundreds of “sessions” with Norman exploring the creative process with the likes of The Rolling Stones, John Travolta, Carly Simon, Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, John Belushi, Martin Scorsese, Miles Davis, Cher, Dennis Hopper to name a few.

Cinelicious EP and Film-Lover Paul Korver will oversee every aspect of this intricate restoration which is unique in that about half of the 750,000 feet of 16mm film footage has never been processed. “Snip tests have been performed for each 1970’s stock and it has been confirmed that it can be processed. Initial tests are encouraging and the image is looking great which is a testimony to the robustness of the medium of film.”

For the technical aspects of restoration Cinelicious will be scanning 4K oversampled to 2K using their new cutting edge film scanner which is ideal for film restoration in that it is both sprocketless – which is gentle on old films, as well as having the highest dynamic range of any motion picture scanner which is ideal for the chrome / print stocks that were common in the 1970s. The film will then be color graded, restored as necessary, audio synced to picture and delivered to HDCAM-SR, Quicktime, Blu-Ray and DPX masters which will be backed up an LTO Data Archive.

Agency: Innocean Worldwide Americas
AP: Will Woollett
Prod Co: Biscuit Filmworks
Producer: Arrow Kruse
Director: Tim Godsall
Colorist: Steve Rodriguez