Kurosawa classic DVD coincides with NFT celebrations

DGP has announced the completion of the DVD production of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s acclaimed 1958 film ‘The Hidden Fortress’ for the British Film Institute (BFI). The sixth Kurosawa DVD produced by DGP for the BFI has allowed DGP to establish a consistent look and feel for the series.
Will Taylar at DGP designed the looping, animated menus using a combination of AVID and After Effects, then the menus were transcoded into Sonic Solutions authoring system.
Part fairy story and part samurai action movie, ‘The Hidden Fortress’ tells the story of a princess in peril, and is acknowledged as the main inspiration for ‘Star Wars’.
One of the highlights of the DVD bonus material is an interview with George Lucas who discusses the film and how his own work has been influenced by Kurosawa.
The DVD is to be released on March 25, 2002, by the BFI, and coincides with the major retrospective of Kurosawa’s films at the National Film Theatre as part of the NFT’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Established in 1995, DGP is a digital post-production and new media facility based in Soho, London. The company offers Avid offline and online editing suites, Discreet* compositing and finishing (smoke and flint), as well as DVD design, compression and authoring, Video on Demand encoding and multimedia.
The company, which has grown rapidly from its birth of one Avid offline suite and two people, currently occupies 6000 square feet, employs around 30 people, and turnover is in excess of £2.5 million per annum.
DGP, www.dgpsoho.co.uk