Deluxe Entertainment Services Group (Deluxe) announced that its compression and authoring services are now Dolby Vision approved, which will rapidly facilitate the release of more high-quality 4K UHD Blu-ray content into the market. Deluxe has already delivered more than 100 4K UHD Blu-ray SKUs in high dynamic range (HDR) – more titles than any other industry provider. With this announcement, Deluxe’s end-to-end compression and authoring workflow, including its own proprietary toolset for dynamic range and color space conversion, and that of partners Scenarist and Ateme, is now approved by Dolby to support Dolby Vision HDR in addition to HDR10 for the 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc format.
With Futuresource expecting sales of 4K UHD disc players in 2017 to grow 148% and sales of 4K UHD TVs to grow 38%, Deluxe is helping to meet the growing demand for video content featuring the leap in visual quality that HDR delivers. The company has been working with many major studios and distributors to support their 4K UHD and HDR initiatives, with Paramount Pictures’ Transformers: The Last Knight being among the first Dolby Vision 4K UHD Blu-ray titles that Deluxe delivered.
“The Transformers franchise delivers the kind of eye-popping action and state-of-the-art sound that absolutely engulfs you,” said Edward Hoxsie, SVP of worldwide product production and fulfillment for Paramount Pictures. “Watching Transformers: The Last Knight on 4K UHD with Dolby Vision HDR quite literally transforms the home viewing experience into something more immersive and more visceral than ever before.”
Deluxe Distribution president Walter Schonfeld said, “Content providers turn to Deluxe because we have a complete infrastructure to support them in delivering the highest quality entertainment experiences. We’ve collaborated closely with Dolby and leading commercial tool providers Scenarist and Ateme to develop and perfect our workflow – which is backed by the world’s top compression and authoring experts, global facilities covering four time zones, 99.9% on-time delivery and a worldwide operation that masters more than 4500UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD SKUs per year. We’re pleased to extend that to now include approved Dolby Vision UHD Blu-ray capability.”
“Deluxe has a long track record of pioneering workflows and technologies that help drive adoption of new formats,” said Ron Geller, VP of Worldwide Content Relations, Dolby Laboratories. “They’ve been an early supporter and key partner to us in bringing Dolby Vision to consumers across the cinema, home, and mobile devices.”
BURN Studio Signs Directorial Duo Coming of Age For U.S. Representation
Multi-platform production studio BURN has added Coming of Age, the directing duo of Lewis Atallah and Mattias Russo-Larsson, to its roster for U.S. representation. This marks the duo’s first signing with a production company.
“We love these guys--they embody the mindset and attitude of the exact talent we seek. Creatively ambitious and culturally aware, they’re already immersed in the multi-platform filmmaking world,” said BURN managing director/EP Brad Johns. “They share our view that social can and should be both elevated and authentic and they bring a level of strategy to their craft that ensures measurable results against what they do.”
Known for their genre-agnostic style, Coming of Age has a shared worldview shaped by international upbringings that inform everything from creating welcoming set dynamics to their visual approach. Lewis’s Lebanese background and Mattias’s Swedish roots, combined with their experience working across Europe, the MENA region and the U.S., continue to fuel their creativity and deepen the cultural nuance in their work. Having cut their teeth in the music video space, the duo garnered hundreds of millions of views online. Their shift into commercial work was formed by their time spent as creative directors, which grew their belief that strong creative drives strategy when it comes to world-building and shaping a brand’s social presence.
As longtime collaborators, Lewis and Mattias share a creative shorthand that’s rooted in mutual respect and years of building from the ground up. They place equal value on styling, art direction and production design as they do on camera work, approaching each project with the internal mantra of “be the reference.” It’s a philosophy that has driven them... Read More