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New Deal Studios Expands Digital Division

Award-winning New Deal Studios, best known for design and production of miniature and practical effects for feature films, has expanded the company's digital effects division, positioning itself as a full service visual effects studio.

New Deal provides clients with comprehensive visual effects services from design and pre-visualization through practical and digital effects production to a state-of-the art DI suite; making NDS one of the few studios in the world with this full range of capabilities.

For Matthew Gratzner, co-founder and creative director, the expansion of the Digital Division may be new, but the NDS dedication to excellence remains the same. "Our goal is to always achieve the highest quality, photorealistic effects possible," Gratzner said. "The expansion of our Digital Division allows us to fully utilize our resources, both practical and digital, to create the best images for any given project."

Digital Effects Producer Michael Theurer agrees that the NDS commitment to creativity and quality sets it apart from competitors. "We have an enormous palette of tools to choose from, and as a self-contained studio, everything we need is right here. This allows us to be creatively flexible with our clients and our artists." NDS goes one step further by cross-training their artists in both practical and digital production, giving their teams a creative edge.

Because NDS has a reputation for stellar management matched with extraordinary creativity, they are able to attract the best talent in the industry and provide an environment that allows artists to flourish and contribute to each project.

In addition to the talents of the founders, the expanded division offers the expertise of Digital Effects Supervisor Robert Chapin as well as a pool of senior artists who bring decades of experience in digital visual effects. For Chapin, the expansion of the New Deal Digital Division means his team has all of the latest digital resources and practical assets at hand. "We have a truly full-service studio all under one roof. If we need to shoot elements on the spot, we can do it and pipe them back into our digital workstations instantly."

New Deal's digital pipeline, designed by Technical Director and Lead Compositor Jeffrey Jasper, was developed to scale with project demands. "We focused on simplifying the workflow process to give an enormous amount of control to the artists, enabling them to handle any number of effects shots quickly and efficiently." New Deal has most recently added a full Digital Intermediate suite with a 2K digital and 35mm film projector for client timing sessions, screenings and work review.

NDS has also created a unique digital art department pipeline that links all divisions through the sharing of digital assets. This allows their digital team to work hand in hand with the Art Concept Development team, using CAD accurate 3D programs such as Rhino and Solidworks, to handle every need from production design, construction drawings and rapid prototyping.

Chapin, a long-time colleague and friend of the New Deal Co-Founders, says it is a testament to their business sense that the studio has thrived. "It is the trust that New Deal has developed over the years with their clients and artists that has allowed them to expand and grow, built on the amazing work that they deliver."

New Deal Studios' Digital Division has provided complex compositing, seamless 3-D integration, effects animation and stunning examples of digital environments on films including X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, and THE PRODUCERS. With their newly expanded pipeline, NDS was the exclusive digital vendor providing more than 300 digital shots on features such as PARAISO TRAVEL and the upcoming Famke Janssen thriller 100 FEET. The New Deal team is also about to start work on both practical and digital effects for director Martin Scorsese's new film, ASHECLIFFE.

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