Autodesk Lustre Digital Color Grading System Attracts European Post-Production Facilities Working in Film and Television

Autodesk Lustre Digital Color Grading System Attracts European Post-Production Facilities Working in Film and Television

Dynamic Content Created With Lustre Helps to Capture and Retain Audiences

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Sept 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ADSK) Autodesk Lustre digital color grading system has been further adopted by post-production facilities across Europe. Customers that have recently purchased Lustre include CinePostproduction Geyer Berlin in Germany, Lumiq in Italy, Duboi in France, Kinema Digital and iFilm in Spain, and The Post Office and Safak in Turkey. Lustre has been used to grade several Academy Award-winning films, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong and Tsotsi.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO )

Escalating competition for film and television viewers has broadened the need for visually compelling and differentiated content. This is spreading the appeal of specialized digital grading tools such as Lustre beyond the film industry. "Autodesk Lustre has set the bar for nonlinear digital color grading in feature film production. We're now seeing growing demand for these specialized tools in the TV and commercial industries, as well as for films acquired in HD," says Patrick Jocelyn, media and entertainment director - EMEA, Autodesk. "More and more customers are recognizing that Lustre is the only system that can match their needs in terms of speed, flexibility and creativity."

Spanish facility Kinema Digital uses Lustre for grading feature films, commercials and broadcast projects. "Among all the systems we saw at IBC last year, we decided to purchase Autodesk Lustre because it's the industry leader and the most widely adopted digital grading tool in the world," said Chema Remacha, chief executive of Kinema Digital. "Furthermore, on a development level, Lustre is the pioneer." Kinema Digital has invested in a Lustre Station and a Lustre Master Station.

Spain-based iFilm has also invested in a Lustre Station as well as a Lustre Master Station. The facility uses the Lustre Station for editing, creating edit decision lists (EDLs) and cleaning images after they have been scanned, and uses the Lustre Master Station for color grading. This allows iFilm to optimize its resources and increase efficiency. "We chose Autodesk Lustre for its flexibility and ability to fit into our established workflow. Another key factor was its suitability for team work. The two systems are able to work together and interact with the rest of our pipeline," explained Ramon Martos, general manager of iFilm.

iFilm has recently worked on the feature film Las Vidas de Celia, a complex project shot on both 16 mm and HD. Lustre was used to unify the two formats as well as to manipulate the color of the film, creating a homogenous effect that adapts to the plot. "A key benefit of the Autodesk Lustre systems is the way they understand and adapt the science of color to a completely digital environment, taking into account the photochemical objectives," said Martos. "Additionally, each system can access the other's disks, making it possible to overlap workflow and optimize resources. This year we hope to digitally grade more than 20 films."

Another facility that cites the Lustre system's workflow and interoperability benefits is CinePostproduction Geyer Berlin, a subsidiary of CineMedia Film AG. The facility adopted Lustre for use on film and high-end TV projects, and also use Autodesk Combustion desktop compositing and visual effects software to prepare masks for colorists to use in Lustre. CinePostproduction works on both domestic and international projects from Eastern Europe, Israel and Turkey. Due to the smaller budgets of European films, the facility needed a digital grading solution that was fast and cost-effective, yet capable of creating final looks that rival those of any major international production.

Ivar Beer, head of digital post-production at CinePostproduction, said: "Autodesk Lustre provides the highest level of integration with our post-production workflow, as you can import mask shapes from Autodesk Flame or Combustion and soft import image sequences from other visual effects workstations. We also like the philosophy behind the user interface. It really helps the colorist concentrate on the task at hand. The most important tools for us are the 3D look-up-table import function to calibrate the grading suite to our film prints and the 2D tracker for isolating areas of the image for secondary color correction."

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is a Fortune 1000 company, wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the manufacturing, building, infrastructure, wireless data services and media and entertainment fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers create, manage and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers turn ideas into competitive advantage by becoming more productive, streamlining project efficiency and maximizing profits.

Founded in 1982, Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California. For additional information about Autodesk, please visit www.autodesk.com.

NOTE: Autodesk, Combustion, Flame and Lustre are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Contact: Kim Willsher, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, +44 (0)20 7403 8878
Email: kimw@rlyl.co.uk

Contact: Raj Dehil, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, +44 (0)20 7403 8878
Email: rajd@rlyl.co.uk

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Autodesk, Inc.

CONTACT: Kim Willsher, kimw@rlyl.co.uk, or Raj Dehil, rajd@rlyl.co.uk,
both of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, +44 (0)20-7403-8878

Web site: http://www.autodesk.com/

-------
Profile: intent