BURBANK, CA – Atlas Digital and Runway, Inc., have formed a partnership that unites the two boutique post production companies. Their collective expertise spans feature films, scripted series, reality television and streaming content, as well as pioneering innovative and proprietary technology for the production and post production industries.
Atlas and Runway will now share resources, research and development, and partner on new opportunities, but will continue to separately focus on their proven genres and existing relationships. The combined resources of the companies encompass approximately 1,200 editing systems and along with Runway’s sister company, The Post Group, the expanded real estate footprint covers 530 editing rooms in Santa Monica, Hollywood, Universal City and Burbank.
The recent acquisition of four new buildings in Burbank and Sherman Oaks will add over 125 more editing rooms by mid 2019. The companies also provide a complete suite of post services, including edit system rentals and resales, facility engineering and technical support, post production staffing, on-set or near-set dailies, DIT staffing and transcoding, all supported by technicians, operators, engineers and ownership. Moreover, the companies offer production and post production payroll services.
“The Atlas/Runway partnership gives all of our client’s access to more human and technological resources, more geographic locations and a wealth of knowledge based on the diverse experiences of the entire staff,” said Atlas Digital chief executive officer Shawn Sanbar. “We will continue to build on our unique niches yet we will grow together to offer clients everything they need to stay ahead of changes in our industry.”
By combining forces, Atlas, Runway, Wild Woods Picture & Sound (co-owned by Atlas Digital), and The Post Group are globally positioned to support and advance their clients with new technologies, workflows and the terrestrial production space footprint required for success in the entertainment market place of today.
“As our clients seek to tell stories in the most creative ways, they demand the latest innovations and technical talent, delivering under ever-tightening deadlines,” adds Runway president Lloyd Guillen. “Joining forces with Atlas and Wild Woods allows us to augment the quality standards our clients demand.”
The new venture separates Runway’s two major divisions — mobile services and post services — pairing the Runway mobile services unit alongside Atlas Digital. Atlas Digital’s Burbank offices will serve as headquarters, unifying back office functions, as each business continues to serve existing clients separately.
Atlas and Runway will leverage each other’s expertise along with a trio of proprietary innovations. These include Atlas Digital’s asset management solution and database company, PilotWare, which is widely used by unscripted, game and talk shows to track guests, game play and content; and the Runway Turnover Station, a key player in automated deliverable creation. It will also extending Atlas’s partnership with Forbidden Technologies’ Blackbird, a cloud-based video distribution service.
Additionally, Wild Woods Picture & Sound, an Academy Award-winning post production facility, which combined forces with Atlas Digital in 2017, will merge operations with Runway’s post services division.
Runway’s post services brings the ability to service advanced HDR, SDR and theatrical picture workflows, including multiple DI color grading suites and theaters. Runway also boasts a 4K DCI screening theater. Wild Woods brings complete sound services, including theatrical and broadcast mix stages, supervision, Foley, a sound editorial department and digital media operation center, as well as picture finishing.
Wild Woods’ Clear Digital division focuses on corporate media services while the Wild Woods’ Xtracks division focus is on complete localization and music or dialogue extraction. Xtracks’ proprietary algorithms are able to extract and separate mono or mixed composite tracks of audio allowing for music replacement opening additional distribution channels.
“We look at post production as much more than first-run content finishing and more as global media services,” says Derek Luff, founding partner and president at Wild Woods. “Today’s streaming companies and content creators demand the highest level of quality and creative services while finishing first-run content and at the same time to be able to localize, version, master and deliver content to distribution outlets and streaming platforms on a global basis.”