THE PACKAGED DEAL

This month, Post looks at the advantages offered by studios that can handle everything “under one roof.” Director Kim Bass, who’s a partner in Hollywood’s Bass Entertainment Pictures (www.bassentertainmentpictures.com), completed work on two feature films in just the past year, and credits Digital Jungle with making it happen.

Bass and his team write, direct and shoot their own original features, with funding from Take2 Equity Group. Junkyard Dog, starring Vivica A. Fox, was the featured film at the Women’s International Film Festival in Miami earlier this month, and was selected because of its high quality and empowering subject matter: a strong woman helps rescue a younger woman from an abusive captor. Kill Speed is a different kind of action film, focusing on young pilots that operate above the law, shuttling drugs across the border in high-speed planes. In both cases, Digital Jungle handled complete post services.

“I think of [Digital Jungle] as an extension of Bass Entertainment Pictures,” says Bass. “I let each department take ownership of that portion of the film. All I need to do is go there with footage and I come out with a finished film that can go straight to distribution.”

Bass also takes advantage of the studio’s consulting services. “I’ve spoken to [them] before I’ve written the screenplays,” he notes. They will suggest a workflow, and “based on their input, I can start writing the script. I can re-write something [that might] be too expensive to do. If you are trying to shoot a modestly-budgeted film, you can really get yourself in trouble in post, because it is very expensive,” he continues. “They have magic boxes in Hollywood that can fix almost anything — but at what cost? You don’t want to go out into the field and shoot something that they can’t handle in the workflow.”

Keeping things at one shop also gave Bass more for his money. “It would have been very restrictive and the quality would have suffered greatly,” he says of having to work with multiple studios. “People were blown away by the production value,” he says of the two films’ screenings. “And I think that’s only possible if you can get your post in one place.”