Film School Announces Collaboration with Leading Digital Effects Studio

[by Brenda Mills, Florida State Univ website]

Florida State and the Digital Domain Media Group are collaborating in the creation of a new facility, to include the Digital Domain Institute, and the development of a unique program that will result in new educational opportunities, high-tech research programs, high-paying jobs and an economic boost for the state of Florida. The City of West Palm Beach, including former Mayor Lois Frankel and City Commission President Kimberly Mitchell, played an integral role in this effort, providing land and funding to facilitate the development of the facility.

Representatives from the Digital Domain Media Group, comprised of multiple digital production companies, including the multi-Academy Award-winning Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com), Florida State University (www.fsu.edu) and the City of West Palm Beach unveiled the future site of the Digital Domain Institute in downtown West Palm Beach (401 Okeechobee Blvd.).

The presence of Digital Domain Media Group’s new headquarters in Port St. Lucie, as well as the Digital Domain Institute and an adjoining digital production studio in West Palm Beach, will lead to the creation of hundreds of high-paying jobs, as well as thousands of other jobs indirectly connected to Digital Domain Media Group operations. The establishment of a clean industry and state-of-the-art research programs yields the promise of even more economic growth for Florida.

“This agreement is an extraordinarily exciting development for the state of Florida and Florida State University,” said Florida State University President Eric J. Barron. “This pioneering public-private collaboration could be a model for universities nationwide in a time of budget shortfalls.”

For the Digital Domain Media Group, the decision to open a studio in Florida was an easy one, based on the unmatched quality of film-industry professionals produced by Florida State’s College of Motion Picture Arts (www.film.fsu.edu), and the support of the West Palm Beach community, said John Textor, Chairman of the Digital Domain Media Group.

“Florida State’s film school graduates are excellent storytellers, and story is the key to our business,” said Textor. “Floridians just now seem to be learning what leading filmmakers already know — that the quality of Florida State film school graduates’ creative work is among the very best in the country.”

The creation of a jointly operated Digital Domain Institute in West Palm Beach will provide rare opportunities for undergraduate students enrolled in Florida State’s College of Motion Picture Arts. The Digital Domain Institute will provide students with the opportunity to work side-by-side with top industry professionals and become “Digital Domain Certified” in an area of professional specialization of their choice.

The college will establish a new Bachelor of Fine Arts major specifically related to digital media production and a new digital media research center that will focus on industry-sponsored applied research. Students will have the opportunity to work side-by-side with industry professionals on high-profile media projects — and even to conduct research on cutting-edge technologies that have possible applications in the film industry and in other fields. Like the college’s innovative Torchlight Program (www.film.fsu.edu/Undergraduate-Programs/The-Torchlight-Program), this new venture will provide in-depth, real-world experiences that match the college’s unique curriculum.

“Imagine being a film student, and having the opportunity to work on a blockbuster film, likeTron: Legacy before graduation alongside top digital artists in the world,” Florida State College of Motion Picture Arts Dean Frank Patterson said. “These are the types of golden opportunities that educators like me absolutely dream about for their students.”

See the original post here: http://film.fsu.edu/FSU-Film-News/Top-Stories/Digital-Domain-Institute-to-be-developed-in-West-Palm-Beach

—————

3D conversion portion of Digital Domain has company growing rapidly

[By Alexi Howk, T C Palm]

Digital Domain Media Group‘s acquisition of In-Three Inc., a company that pioneered technology to convert flat two-dimensional live action films into 3D stereo imagery, is leading to an explosion in job growth.

That section of the company, now headquartered in Port St. Lucie, is the largest division with 151 employees, And that portion of the company alone is now expected to reach up to 500 jobs, surpassing the company’s goal of hiring 500 overall employees throughout the entire company by 2014.

Originally based in Agoura Hills, Calif., about 10 miles west of Los Angeles, 48 of In-Three’s 65 employees chose to relocate to Port St. Lucie when Digital Domain acquired the company last fall.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s unprecedented that any company has been acquired and that many individuals would relocate 3,000 miles away, so it really showed how much the staff believed in carrying the vision of our company through,” said Jon Karafin, formerly In-Three’s vice president of production operations and now director of production operations at Digital Domain Media Group.

Digital Domain Media Group is the parent company of academy award-winning visual effects studio Digital Domain, which is based in Venice, Calif. Digital Domain Media Group was lured to Port St. Lucie in late 2009 by state and local officials with an incentive package worth nearly $70 million. In exchange, the company agreed to create up to 500 jobs with an average annual salary of $65,000 by 2014.

The goal this year was 90 jobs. However, with the acquisition of In-Three, the company has topped 243 employees so far this year.

The kind of work In-Three and the visual effects side of Digital Domain — which mainly focuses on 2D films — is doing is allowing the company to hire many entry level type positions for job seekers fresh out of college.

“That’s what has allowed us to hire so aggressively local people who we can train,” Digital Domain Media Group CEO John Textor said.

In-Three organized in 1999 to pioneer research and development in stereoscopic reconstruction of two dimensional images and patented a process calledDimensionalization, which makes it possible to convert two-dimensional films into high-quality 3D films. Digital Domain 3D is the new name of the 3D division. However, Karafin said the company owns the In-Three trademarks.

“So we really show that we were really the ones who started the industry,” he said. “There wasn’t any stereo 3D projection essentially when (In-Three was) first developing the technology.”

In-Three has done work on films including, Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “G-Force.”

“What conversion allows you to do that 3D cameras cannot … the purists will say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to shoot it in 3D.’ Well, even the very best directors in the world get (that) this stuff is good. You can take a 10-year-old film like Star Wars and bring it back … in 3D,” Textor said. “The company we acquired owns the six original patents on this whole process.

“We’ve tested this out for all the major directors and producers,” Textor said. “That’s why they were so important to us. They were like the original scientists in space, you know freaky bright guys. “

The patents go back to the late 1990s when a lot of 3D wasn’t being used in films like it is today, Karafin said.

The 3D division is doing work on two Hollywood blockbusters set to be released this summer, and while the company can’t disclose the number of projects in the pipeline, “our capacity at this time is sold out, so there’s room for expansion,” Karafin said.

Because of confidentiality agreements with clients, the company is prohibited from revealing the details until the films are released.

“They will be huge films,” Karafin said, referring to the summer blockbusters.

He said the move to Florida has enabled the company to keep huge portions of its work in-house rather than outsourcing it overseas. He said costs in California are becoming too expensive, so the move to Florida made sense.

“We’re trying to bring industry back to Florida and populate out here,” he said. “The real estate prices are more reasonable, taxes are lower and there are a lot of incentives for any form of film and digital effects production.”

For Karafin, originally from the northeast, it was an easy move.

“Florida is a beautiful state so it wasn’t that difficult of a sell,” he said.

See the original post here: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/apr/22/3d-conversion-portion-of-digital-domain-has/