News

ESV Kick Ass at the Movies

It's been an incredibly busy few months for the Pro Tools rental division here at ESV. No sooner had we completed the planned upgrade for the rest of our Avid Pro Tools TDM systems to HDX at the start of the year, we discovered that we were way short of meeting our customers requirements for their up and coming spring and summer projects.

First off, a 32 Fader D-Control surface to ship immediately to the world famous Cinecitta Studios in Rome for the foreign versions of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini and his son Vittorio originally for propaganda purposes under the slogan "Il cinema è l'arma più forte" (Cinema is the most powerful weapon) the studios went on to film several large scale American productions including Ben-Hur and then became the studio most closely associated with Federico Fellini. In 2001, two of the most prestigious names in Europe, Cinecitta Studios and DeLuxe Italia joined forces to form a major strategic alliance to manage the historical film studios in Rome.

With barely no time to catch our breath from despatching the new D-Control to Rome (and arranging for a local Avid representative to commission and test the console on-site) along with supplying two HDX systems for the foreign mix versions - within the space of an hour, we receive two calls from our lovely friends at Pinewood Shepperton Group and Twickenham Studios requesting gear for their mix requirements for Kick-Ass 2 and World War Z respectively.

What did they want – more TDM systems?
No, that would be far too easy...

Instead, Twickenham - 'HDX3, 2 x HDX2, 2 x Genelec 8050 5.1 systems', Pinewood - 'an HDX1, an HDX2 both with Avid HD MADI I/O and while you’re there, can we have a 24-Fader D-Command also please?'

A quick call and a rush Purchase Order to our suppliers at Avid, a phone call to our local Apple distributor to buy in all of their remaining stock of Mac Pro 12-Cores (each with 64GB of Kingston) and 24 hours later we’re unpacking, installing and commissioning five new HDX systems to add to our existing HDX rental stock taking the number of HDX cards up to 16!

ESV is the number one choice for Pro Tools HD rental in the UK and Richard is very pleased of the fact that ESV have acquired this status, "We're really passionate about the equipment we supply and the service we offer, and to have the majority of the UK’s elite film and post-production facilities as our customers makes me very proud indeed"

Pinewood Studios Post Production
http://www.pinewoodgroup.com/our-studios/uk/post-production

Twickenham Studios
http://www.twickenhamstudios.com/PostProduction/Default.aspx

Cinecitta Studios
http://www.cinecittastudios.it/en/digital-factory/audio-post-production