Budapest, Hungary - Colorfront, one of the world’s most advanced digital
intermediate (DI) and postproduction facilities, based in Budapest,
Hungary, has announced that its software development team is to be
honored with a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. News of the prestigious award, for
the development Autodesk’s Lustre grading system, comes as the team
focuses on new challenges of streamlining camera-to-post workflows for
motion picture and episodic TV production.
The Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards honor the people whose discoveries and innovations have contributed in significant, outstanding, and lasting ways to motion pictures. The Scientific and Engineering Award is given for achievements that produce a definite influence on the advancement of the motion picture industry.
Colofront’s Mark Jaszberenyi, along with software engineers Gyula Priskin and Tamas Perlaki, met in high school where they studied advanced mathematics and have worked together for a decade. They will receive the Academy Award for the design and development of the Lustre colour correction system at a formal awards ceremony on 20th February 2010 in Los Angeles. Lustre enables real-time digital manipulation of imagery during the DI process for motion pictures.
Colorfront made motion picture history in 2001 when it delivered SACC (Stand-Alone Colour Corrector) to colorist Peter Doyle to grade Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Shortly after, EFILM in Los Angeles became Colorfront’s next customer, breaking new ground with the first end-to-end DI on We Were Soldiers.
During this period, British company 5D licensed Colorfront’s color correction technology and brought this to market as 5D Colossus. In 2003, Discreet (now Autodesk) licensed Colorfront’s technology, and introduced the first Lustre DI system. Autodesk acquired Lustre from Colorfront in June 2005.
The Colorfront team has advised many of the world’s leading facilities about DI workflow, including EFILM/Deluxe, Technicolor, LaserPacific/Kodak in Los Angeles, Éclair in Paris, PrimeFocus in India, ARRI in Munich, and Weta Digital in Wellington.
The Academy Award comes it implements new image-processing and visual communications technologies at its Budapest-based facility that streamline camera-to-post workflows for motion pictures and episodic TV productions.
Colorfront’s managing director Aron Jaszberenyi says, “To receive this accolade for DI innovation work is a great honor for our team. Their work had a dramatic impact on motion picture post, but the industry moves on and new challenges lie ahead. We use Lustre in our own DI grading theaters, complemented by the new software tools that our award-winning team are developing in-house to assist every aspect of pre-production, cinematography, dailies, conform, visual effects, DI and deliverables. Colorfront relies on these proprietary new technologies for a fast and efficient high-resolution workflow to serve our international production clients.”