Ascent Celebrates Hurt Locker Role

An extensive package of post production services to the visually arresting hit movie the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker has been celebrated this week.
A spokesman for Ascent Media said they are proud to have provided a contribution to the dramatically devastating and multiple-award-winning feature. The filmmakers entrusted the digital intermediate with over 75 visual effects shots and all of the processing and dailies work in a coordinated effort between Company 3 in Santa Monica and sister companies in Hollywood and London.
In addition to Sunday's Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, The Hurt Locker has also received a multitude of awards from organizations including the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, the American Cinema Editors, and BAFTA.
"We were privileged to collaborate on such a powerful and important independent film and we congratulate the filmmakers for the much-deserved recognition they are receiving this awards season," said Stefan Sonnenfeld, co-founder and Managing Director, Company 3.
Colourist Stephen Nakamura brought his technical ability and creative sensitivity to the film's colour grading process, making extensive use of keys to subtly enhance the colour in skies, soldiers' uniforms, and even in the wires of the explosives the main characters must diffuse.
"When we love a place or a person or anything," Nakamura explained, "we tend to look at it through rose coloured glasses.
"That's what we wanted to do almost subliminally. To move away from the drab, brown look a lot of other movies in the desert tend to have."
The post workflow began as Company 3's sister facilities, London-based Soho Film Lab who processed the film negative and Ascent142 graded the dailies.
The original negative was then shipped to Company 3 in Los Angeles for scanning. Then, their visual effects team, led by Alex Romano, set to work primarily putting the audience in the middle of the film's intense explosion sequences through a combination of 2- and 3D-CGI.
As the scope of the project grew, Company 3 enlisted Encore Hollywood's Visual Effects group to help quickly turn around the additional shots. The feature was finished at Company 3 in LA.
"Our relationship with sister facilities, such as Encore and Ascent 142, among others," Sonnenfeld summed up, "enabled us to scale resources quickly according to the increasing demands of the project."
Ascent is a global digital media supply chain with over 40 united facilities worldwide.
(BMcC/GK)