Movio, a Vista Group company, has signed a three-year deal with Australian cinema chain Village Cinemas enabling renewed access to its marketing data analytics and campaign management solutions and new data integration capabilities.
Wallis Cinemas, Australia, has become the first exhibitor to embrace the Vista Cloud platform. “We’re excited about the whole system, and its impact on both our operations and sales channels,” said Wallis Cinemas COO Ben Huxtable. “Vista’s Digital Platform will power our digital channels and ensure uninterrupted ticket sales across all of our cinemas. And we’re also going to streamline the daily management of tasks for staff as they only have to log in to a single, intuitive web portal to access Vista’s entire capability suite. The time saving, and efficiencies will be massive.”
Rising Sun Pictures produced nearly 200 visual effects shots for the new Marvel Studios series Hawkeye, which recently debuted on Disney+. The studio’s work included the reproduction of an actual New York City neighborhood visible outside an apartment where much of the series takes place. Rendered in extraordinary detail, the urban exterior is seen in daytime and nighttime contexts and under varying weather conditions, including a snowstorm.
As Dolby Atmos continues to become a dominant force in the audio industry, studios like Melbourne-based Red Road Immersive are pushing the boundaries with sound design, bringing unparalleled audio experiences to listeners. Red Road owner Angus Davidson has been in the music business for four decades. He recently handled the sound on Little Tornadoes, a feature film that premiered at the 2021 Melbourne International Film Festival.
The global attention measurement platform Amplified Intelligence of Adelaide, Australia, is now working with cinema ad network Val Morgan on the first independent study to use attention metrics to compare the effectiveness of cinema advertising with other media channels.
Vista Group CEO Kimbal Riley has announced that longtime Movio executives Sarah Lewthwaite and Matthew Liebmann will jointly lead the company following the departure of co-founder and chief executive Will Palmer this December. Movio, the marketing data analytics and cinema campaign management company, was founded by Palmer and Peter Beguely in 2010. Lewthwaite, Movio’s chief client officer located in London, and Matthew Liebmann, Movio’s chief operating officer operating out of the company’s Auckland headquarters, will report directly to Riley.
Rising Sun Pictures has added two post-doctoral researchers from the Australian Institute for Machine Learning to lead a new initiative centered on the application of artificial intelligence to its visual effects pipeline. Dr. John Bastian and Dr. Ben Ward will develop pipeline tools based on machine learning and other AI applications as a means of streamlining visual effects production and creating visuals that look more photorealistic.
With the film and television industry rebounding from the pandemic, now is a great time to begin a career in visual effects. Production activity, in Australia and worldwide, is expanding quickly as studios and streaming services rush to meet pent up consumer demand for new content. That, in turn, has caused a labor shortage, especially for professionals with specialized training, such as visual effects artists. Studios that produce VFX for film and TV can’t hire qualified talent fast enough.
As a junior look development artist at Rising Sun Pictures, Bridget Dinning is part of a team responsible for the aesthetic aspects of visual effects. Her job requires highly developed technical skills and a discerning artistic eye to ensure that 3D characters, objects, environments, and other assets are consistent in terms of color, lighting, and style.
As a senior data wrangler at Rising Sun Pictures, Brittany Herriman helps keep the studio’s production pipeline running in high gear. Her role is to manage the vast amounts of data exchanged each day between RSP and motion pictures studios and other production partners. Media arriving at the studio must be accessible to artists working in various aspects of visual effects production. Finished work needs to be delivered on time and on spec to stakeholders around the globe.
