LOS ANGELES (Dec. 1, 2020) Since its founding in 2009, Light Iron, a Panavision company, has been committed to reimagining post-production workflows. That dedication to innovation has made the company uniquely prepared to meet the challenges of the current moment, in which the entire motion-picture industry is being forced to reconsider how it operates, from prep through post. As productions increasingly look for ways to make their workflows remote, Light Iron has responded with a range of innovations for dailies, offline editorial, DI, and finishing that expand clients' creative options wherever they are working, even as the company's in-facility offerings have resumed.Further bolstering Light Iron's support for these new initiatives, the company has welcomed three renowned executives to its senior leadership team. Seth Hallen, Phil Harrelson, and Laura Borowsky will help grow the company's infrastructure, expand its service offerings, and support in-house talent while continuing to nurture the collaborative, innovative, and nimble atmosphere for which Light Iron is well known.
When production halted earlier this year in the face of worldwide lockdowns to combat the spread of COVID-19, projects already in post had to adapt on the fly to take their workflows remote. From the beginning, it's been our mission at Light Iron to guide our clients through post production's constantly changing technologies and workflows so they can focus on telling their stories without compromise, said Peter Cioni, co-managing director at Light Iron. Having long embraced mobile tools and remote collaboration, we were able to seamlessly transition our artists and clients offsite, bringing our in-facility experience right to their homes without missing a beat or a deadline.
Light Iron was an early pioneer of mobile dailies workflows, and the company continues to innovate with Outpost Remote Control (RC), the latest generation of its Outpost near-set dailies solution, which now allows a Light Iron dailies colorist to control the complete system remotely, regardless of geographic distance. The Outpost RC system can be quickly deployed in a production office, data center, or wherever is convenient for the production, providing all the benefits of a real-time near-set solution without requiring a colorist to be physically present on set. This allows the production to keep their on-site crew numbers down which remains a priority during COVID-19 while simultaneously giving cinematographers the flexibility to collaborate with any dailies colorist on Light Iron's roster, regardless of the colorist's location.
Light Iron has also expanded its offline editorial rental solutions to bring the premier experience of its New York location's in-facility offerings directly to clients, equipping them with a complete home installation that's securely connected back to Light Iron's main infrastructure. Light Iron's white-glove delivery provides everything the client will need, from the furniture to the hardware including an SDI confidence monitor with comprehensive, step-by-step support to get the system up and running. Once set up, the client's system connects to and reads from the secure Avid Nexis server that's housed at Light Iron, with access to the same trusted infrastructure, support, and shared storage experience they would enjoy if working in the facility. Light Iron's remote offline editorial rentals are currently being deployed in the New York City area, with targeted regional expansion in early 2021.
For DI and finishing, Light Iron provides a variety of synchronous (live) and asynchronous review solutions to meet clients' needs. Projects that Light Iron has recently finished with remote workflows include the series What We Do in the Shadows, Next, The Queen's Gambit, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Social Distance, and the features One Night In Miami, Wander Darkly, and What the Constitution Means to Me.
Additionally, since late June, Light Iron has again been hosting clients in person. The company is committed to providing a safe, flexible, and efficient experience, and has instituted new safety protocols for clients working in-facility, including comprehensive cleaning programs, updated food-service procedures, and strict occupancy limits and appropriate distancing. The latest policies and procedures as well as up-to-date status information for each of Light Iron's locations can be found at Light Iron's COVID-19 resource hub, www.lightiron.com/covid.
Supporting its expansion of services, Light Iron has bolstered its leadership team with the recent hires of Seth Hallen, Phil Harrelson, and Laura Borowsky.
Seth Hallen joins Light Iron as co-managing director, bringing extensive expertise in production and post to the team, along with decades of leadership experience and a wide range of industry relationships. With a background as a business unit owner within Sony, an entrepreneur, and a CEO, Hallen currently serves as President of the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA), a role that he has held since 2016.
Watching Light Iron's growth over the past decade has been incredible, said Hallen. From the start, the company has been rethinking how post production is done while growing its reputation for its client-focused family culture. These new workflow solutions offer clients even more flexibility without sacrificing any of their creative vision. I've always had great admiration for the creative talent in post production, and I'm excited to work with Light Iron's artists, who are uniquely devoted to embracing evolving filmmaking technologies and pioneering new solutions to deliver magic on the screen.
As Light Iron's VP of Operations, Phil Harrelson will be responsible for managing the company
