LONDON — FilmLight (www.filmlight.ltd.uk), maker of color grading tools, including the Baselight system, has opened a fully-staffed office in Munich, Germany. The location was chosen to both serve the growing creative market in Germany and to provide an starting point for hands-on service across central Europe and beyond.
Leading the new office is FilmLight’s image engineer, Daniele Siragusano. Over the last four years Siragusano has been helping FilmLight’s customers to implement complex workflows, as well as presenting the company’s color technology to professionals across all continents. He is joined by a team of workflow and support engineers, with a well-known colorist due to become part of the team in the coming months.
“This is a great development because it enables us to engage more directly with our users,” says Siragusano. “With highly skilled colleagues on hand we can offer greater product expertise to our expanding customer base in the region. And the new office includes a grading suite, so we can offer professional training, giving creatives in Europe the choice of courses on site, in London and now in Munich.”
Mark Burton, head of EMEA sales for FilmLight, will also spend a substantial part of his time working from Munich. “As well as being a post production powerhouse, Munich is a great base from which to travel, with fast train and comprehensive flight connections around Germany and the surrounding countries,” he explains. “Europe is a big market for us, and the key to our success has always been close co-operation with our users. Having a well-placed European base also ensures that regardless of the outcome of Brexit, there will be no adverse impact on our customer base.
“We need to stay close to our customers because the market is changing fundamentally,” Burton adds. “The conversations we are now having are increasingly detailed and require very specific technical knowledge around workflows, colour technology and systems integration. We owe it to our customers to put our experienced people where they can best serve them. Whether the question is about efficiencies, joined-up workflows, HDR, VR or any other issue of the moment, we have the best people to provide definitive and personalised support.”
The new Munich office opened this month and there is space to expand. This will include the ability to rotate FilmLight’s experienced staff from around the world, bringing new approaches to European customers while also allowing the team to gain more from their careers.