Light Iron Relies on Quantel Genetic Engineering

Hollywood’s Light Iron has purchased a Quantel Genetic Engineering shared workflow infrastructure to augment its end-to-end file-based workflow. Light Iron’s two existing Pablo 4K systems can now work with the same shared media without wasting valuable time transferring media between suites or having to manage multiple versions.

“Genetic Engineering is the key to our collaborative workflow,” Light Iron CEO Michael Cioni says. “Keeping the Pablo platform the same and expanding the terminals enables us to multi-task without inducing redundant processes or having to transfer media. This reduces down-time and enables our colorists and conformists to migrate between projects throughout the workday, all the while increasing our overall storage capacity. We expect to expand this even further with the introduction of Pablo PA (Quantel’s new conform, prep and workflow software) for additional flexibility.”

“The best part about Genetic Engineering is that our artists literally won’t know the difference. Because Genetic Engineering is transparent to the operator, it increases flexibility without any trade-off. Color and conform operators can work faster because they are not married to one specific location. It’s simply a win-win for everyone.”

Cioni continued, “We’ve chosen to invest in Pablo because it best meets our requirements for powerful manipulation of 3D and 2D file-based cinema. In addition, an important issue in owning a business is to ensure all your employees’ talents and your tools are equally maximized. With two Pablos, our expert team can provide literally all of the DI services our clients require of us on just one comprehensive system.”

“As digital intermediate continues to evolve, so do the expectations of the creatives. Expert color correction alone no longer satisfies all of the filmmakers’ requests in a progressive DI setting. This is why Pablo is so valuable to us. Our artists are as familiar with the compositing, painting and editing tools as they are with the grading tools. This means fewer shots are being exported for work outside of Pablo, which minimizes breaks in creative momentum, limits additional artist involvement, alleviates render and export delays, and saves on investment in additional systems,” concluded Cioni.

Light Iron is currently providing services on features such as The Muppets (Disney-RED MX), Scorpion King 3 (Universal-RED MX), Fred 3D (Lionsgate-RED MX), Goats (Red Crown-Arri Alexa) as well as file-based commercial projects such as Lemonade Mouth (Disney), BMW, Chrysler, Hyundai, Dasani, Lucozade and Hanes. Light Iron also provided the complete file-based DI workflow on the multi-Oscar winning movie The Social Network.