Four-year-old Light Iron (www.lightiron.com) launched a brand new facility last month, expanding from its headquarters in Hollywood to the East Coast with a new operation in Manhattan. Light Iron specializes in on-site dailies services, digital intermediate work and data services for projects that are being acquired using the latest file-based cameras.
The studio has a history of contributions to feature films, including Avatar, The Social Network, Flight and most recently 42, but their pipeline solutions are equally well suited for television programming, commercials and even Web-bound projects.
Light Iron co-founder Michael Cioni (pictured) gave a passionate presentation at the studio’s recent launch party in May. The new New York office, located at 580 Broadway, shares a floor with Subvoyant, a creative offline editorial, visual effects, motion graphics and finishing facility that specializes in commercials. Light Iron’s operation includes a 40-seat theater that’s home to a Quantel Pablo Rio and a Christie CP4230 projector that enables realtime 4K monitoring in a calibrated DCI space. The studio also has Dolby’s PRM-4200 professional reference monitors on site.
Cioni realizes that Light Iron might be considered a newcomer, both to New York and to the film industry as a whole. Film has been around for 100 years, he notes, but the last four years have really seen the most change, and Light Iron, he believes, has addressed those changes with pioneering workflows that take advantage of the quality that Raw formats offer.
He went on to detail the transitions he sees taking place, not only in film, but in mobile, print and advertising media. Light Iron, he says, is a company that wants to work with clients that recognize and embrace the opportunities that come with such changes. For those who need a better understanding of new workflows, Light Iron regularly presents Outpost University, an educational program that looks at best practices and strategies that should be employed in datacentric environments.