Top South African postproduction facilities invest in Discreet systems

Discreet has won orders for its flame real-time visual effects design and compositing system and smoke editing and finishing system from two of South Africa’s major post-production houses.
The systems were sold to Blade Works and Ministry of Illusion (MOI) by authorised Discreet reseller, Touchvision.
Blade Works has invested in two flame 8.5 systems running on high-speed Tezro workstations. The company specialises in high-end television commercials and offers a full range of services from telecine to finishing.
According to Blade Works’ Managing Director Steve Harris: “Discreet’s flame is the system of choice for our artists. Since being installed less than a month ago, the flame systems have been deployed for six projects.” Blade Works has brought in Jaco Kraamwinkel and Gavin Hong from Paper Rock Scissors as freelance artists to service the new flame systems.
MOI has installed a smoke 6 HD system to service its high-end commercials business. Installed four months ago, the system joins the facility’s existing flame system and combustion motion graphics, compositing and visual effects software. To date, the smoke system has been used on a number of commercials, including a recently won contract for a weekly series of spots for McDonalds, as well as in-house animation work.
“We’ve invested in Discreet’s smoke system because we’ve had a lot of editing work coming in and we were blown away by the master keyer and editing functions,” said Marios Nicolettis, owner and smoke/flame operator at MOI. “The smoke system is as strong as the flame system. Since we already had Discreet’s stone and wire storage and networking solutions, it was very easy for us to network the smoke and flame systems together.”
(GB)