Frantic Films brings considerable assets to the Prime Focus Group, including its proprietary fluid technology used on Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

The acquisition of Frantic Films VFX by the Indian conglomerate Prime Focus Group along with the post-production facility, Post Logic Studios, was big news this past November. The acquisition added to Prime Focus' six vfx and post-production houses in India and to the four that it owns in the UK.

As a follow-up, VFXWorld takes a look at what the acquisition of Frantic Films has meant to both companies and how the integration of the various corporate cultures is going.

Prime Focus Founder and CEO, Namit Malhotra, explains why his company decided to acquire Frantic Films. "We had been looking to acquire a North American vfx company for quite some time and Frantic Films VFX presented some really unique differentiators.

"First of all, Frantic VFX is one of the few vfx companies, which in addition to having a strong presence in Hollywood, also has facilities in Vancouver and is accustomed to having their talent collaborate across multiple locations. Their strong multi-locational pipeline was a natural fit for Prime Focus Group as we have several facilities across the UK and India as well.

"Secondly, Frantic is known for its R&D and proprietary software, which has not only delivered cutting edge sequences, but has created custom vfx solution for CG water and fire simulation and effects in stereo 3-D. Their custom technology will now benefit all of the Prime Focus Group companies. Frantic has experience working with Hollywood's top studios, on some of the most notable visual effects films, and has a very satisfied client base."

Meanwhile, Frantic Film's Co-Founder Chris Bond adds, "A lot of facilities are islands unto themselves. They exist in one location within one building. Our facility, when (Prime Focus) met with us, had an Australian office in operation, a Winnipeg office, which was our original location, Vancouver and Los Angeles. So, not only did we have multiple offices that we communicated between, but we had a pipeline to move the work around between the facilities. On a shot in Superman Returns, for example, portions of it were done in Australian, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Los Angeles. I think that really excited them because their intention, of course, is to utilize the best talent wherever it exists in the world."

As for Malhotra's second point, Bond discusses Frantic Film's R&D and how its proprietary software will blend in with the Prime Focus community. "We're working on a fluid dynamics software called Flood, and the training material and the people to do the training are going over to India this week to train the Indian side on fluid simulation. It's something that is going to benefit the clients. If we're going to do a thousand shots of water simulation or oceans on a movie, the cost would be enormous to do that in Los Angeles or Canada. So, with the Indian side, we get the benefit of cost on something that is proprietary technology that we own. So there are huge benefits in areas like that."

On its work for Superman Returns, Frantic was able to move work between all its studios easily through its pipeline. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

In addition, at the end of last year, Frantic Films finished work on Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D for New Line/Walden Media. The first live-action feature to be shot entirely in digital 3-D, Journey opens July 11. "It was our first stereo project," Bond states, "and we created a stereo pipeline for it… We did this whole ocean sequence involving dinosaurs. It was really amazing. There are a couple of (stereoscopic) conferences coming up that highlight the work."

Their R&D is not limited to visual effects software, as Frantic Films has also developed production management tools. "We wrote a software called Project Flow, which allows supervisors to review work with artists even if the artists aren't there," Bond observes. "Everything is written in a software called Deadline, which is a network rendering tool or network frame management tool. We've got things in there like remote farm rendering. So, we can have a render farm in Canada, and we can launch a job out of Los Angeles and render on the farm."

The firm's R&D has even explored the problem of transmitting dailies. "We have a daily system that allows every office to see dailies and the content is synced. So, if there's a project we're working on between different offices, historically Winnipeg, Los Angeles, Vancouver, anybody who is involved in the project and has access obviously could go to their daily system and see the dailies produced by somebody else in another part of the company.

"So, we're bringing those things to the rest of the locations (within the Prime Focus universe). In very short order, we should be able to be in a position where we're acting as one unit instead of a diverse set of companies. We'll all have our own local markets, our own clients. It's not like things will change. It's not like a client we've worked with for five years is suddenly going to have their work be done by somebody they don't know in another country. We're only doing things if they make sense and are comfortable for the clients."