At the end of last year, Frantic Films finished work on Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D for which it created a stereo pipeline. Courtesy of Sebastian Raymond/New Line Cinema. © 2008 New Line Cinema.

"I am a recent hire, so it took a little time for me to understand how work flows between Los Angeles, Winnipeg and Vancouver," Nakada adds. "But Frantic has a tremendous infrastructure that makes the daily vfx routines transparent. I have worked with several companies that have multiple, long-distance offices with varying levels of communication effectiveness. I have found it remarkable how robust the intra-company communication is which was a conceptual adjustment."

Fortunately, Nakada joined Frantic at the same time the company and its branches were being acquired. So, the framework and infrastructure was already in place to blend all the parts into a cohesive whole.

"A whole department (pipeline) exists to ensure and continue to build the necessary pipes between countries. Now that I have adjusted to the LA/Canadian pipeline, the collaboration with India does not seem so different. I believe that our pipeline/infrastructure will extend well to London as well as the other Indian offices."

Frantic Films has recently begun work with Prime Focus India on an upcoming sci-fi feature film. Nakada says the project is going very well. "We are all new to each other and are currently building the working relationship. The existing infrastructure helped work out the technical and temporal aspects of efficient collaboration. It will take a little time to have it feel well oiled and develop the trust in creating art in a timely manner. But this is a great example of how well our system is working."

Up to this point, Prime Focus India has placed the majority of the work with Frantic's Winnipeg office. "The facility supervisor is there, and they coordinate with our digital mattes and concepts department in Los Angeles for art evaluation and matte painting execution," Nakada continues. "The artwork gets funneled through the Winnipeg office which handles the communication with Prime Focus India."

Nakada briefly discusses some of the other projects in his department. "Currently in our pipeline is The Great Observer and Bolden. These are both period pieces set in Louisiana in the early 1900s. Photography from this time period exists but cannot be used directly as they are very poor quality. The production footage filmed on set stages and on location has to be extended, periodized and often times rebuilt.

"We invest a lot of time researching the world we are trying to re-create. We look at vintage photography for glimpses of the business types, architectural detail and aesthetics of the time and place. For example, general stores, brothels, hotels, residential housing, churches, parks and smaller details (carriages, buggies, transport containers) are painted to create our environment.

As for specific visual effects work, Bond mentions that Frantic Films will be doing some of the effects for Fox's Dragonball, which is still shooting and set for release April 3, 2009. In addition, the company has five other projects they are ready to work on, but could not discuss.

Finally, how would Prime Focus' new agreement with Warner Bros. Imaging affect Frantic Films? "We have a long history with Warner Bros.," Bond says. "They are one of our personal clients at Frantic Films, and I was pretty excited to see the announcement that there's a relationship with them on the India side as well. It doesn't affect North America per se, but would just reinforce the relationship that we already have (with Warner Bros.)."

J. Paul Peszko is a freelance writer and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He writes various features and reviews, as well as short fiction. He has a feature comedy in development and has just completed his second novel. When he isn't writing, he teaches communications courses.