Elstree Studios To Open Doors On New Green-Screen Facility

In keeping with its tradition of staying at the forefront of film production and workflow technology, Rogue Element Films, Europe’s leading independent digital film rental house, is to open a new digital cinematography facility at Elstree Studios on the outskirts of central London.
Replacing the company’s previous facility at Pinewood, the new Elstree operation will be set up to pioneer a full digital rental, shooting and production workflow.
Among the services available will be full digital film camera rental with Sony F35 and F23, Viper and SI-2K among others, full feature-film camera rental with data recording services, fully intergrated digital production workflow with editorial, a permanent green screen, full digital lab services, playback and dailies review, and a data pipeline direct to Soho for offline and proxy delivery of content.
Dan Mulligan, Managing Director at Rogue Element Films, says: “Having invested in the first Sony F35 cameras supporting full 4:4:4 2K RGB acquisition in the UK, we wanted to take things further by offering the TV and Film production community the UK’s first dedicated green-screen studio with completely uncompressed data acquisition and a fully digital workflow and production pipeline”.
“Having a fully installed green screen ready to run from the start will enable productions to literally walk right into the studio, start shooting to disk from the F35s, and capture the very highest-quality DPXs for pop promos, VFX, or feature pick-up shots. All workflow and editorial technology will be already installed and running on-site.”
Roger Morris Managing Director from Elstree Studios adds: “We are delighted to welcome Rogue Element Films to Elstree and believe that their cutting-edge technology will bring a new dimension to the ways in which our studios are used. As the home of such pioneering movies as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, not to mention some of the UK’s most popular TV shows such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Big Brother, we are the perfect home for such a state-of-the-art operation.”
Since being released last year, Sony’s F35 has proved a winner with TV and movie productions alike, with F35s being used by George Lucas in Prague for the filming of Red Tails, and eight F35s deployed in a 3D shoot by Disney for Tron 2.0. The new Michael Caine movie, Harry Brown, will use F35s shot at Elstree, while F35s are being used by several new USTV productions for 2009 including Defying Gravity, ABC’s new drama Flash Forward, and Showtime’s Californication.
Rogue’s two F35s have just completed a Feature in South Africa for Sony Pictures while also shooting data commercials and more.
“As the only digital film camera supplier at Elstree, we will be helping the studios to provide packaged studio-camera deals to assist productions both logistically and financially,” says Mulligan. “But we see this as only the start of many new developments at Elstree. A full digital production pipeline from camera rental to content delivery, full editorial, full colour dailies suites and more and In the very near future we plan to set up full 3D-compatible studios to complement our existing infrastructure and offer film-makers yet more technological tools to add to their creative armoury. Watch this space!”
(KMcA/BMcC)