CULVER CITY, CA — Sony Pictures (www.sonypictures.com) has brought its sound department, as well as the studio’s digital intermediate facility, Colorworks, under its umbrella to form Sony Pictures Digital Productions. SPDP will now offer a host of post production services to the professional community, including visual effects and computer animation, sound mixing, editorial, digital mastering, color grading, and film restoration. The move comes with production underway on Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, and post continuing on The Smurfs 2.
“These changes to the production organization will help us continue to provide our partners with the same world class suite of facilities and services they have come to expect from Sony Pictures Studios over the years, and I am thrilled to welcome the expertise of Colorworks and the studio’s sound department, with their incredible teams of experienced professionals, to Sony Pictures Digital Productions,” notes SPDP president, Bob Osher.
The changes come following the announcement that Gary Martin, president of Sony Pictures Studios, will be retiring in 2013. Martin was responsible for opening the lot’s Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage and developing Sony Pictures Studios’ Sound Department into a leading facility boasting a stable of Oscar-winning sound mixers and sound supervisors. Along with Sony Pictures Technologies president, Chris Cookson, Martin opened the studio’s digital intermediate facility, which introduced one of the first fully-4K workflows. Osher and Randy Lake, executive VP and GM, Sony Pictures Imageworks, will work closely with the sound department’s Richard Branca and Tom McCarthy, and Colorworks’ Chris Holt, in managing the studio’s combined post-production operations.
Colorworks’ 14,000-square-foot facility, housed at Sony Pictures Studio’s Stage 6, offers realtime, 4K processing in a full digital workflow. The Sony Pictures Sound Department boasts some of the world’s most sought-after sound facilities, and top sound editors with a combined six Oscar wins to the their credit, including the 2013 winner for Best Sound Editing, Zero Dark Thirty. Sony Pictures Imageworks is the Academy Award-winning VFX unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions known for live-action visual effects, CG animation, and 3D imagery. Sony Pictures Animation will release The Smurfs 2 in July 2013, and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 in September 2013.