Montreal: Technical services company Global Vision has opened a motion picture negative processing laboratory in Montreal.
Called Citelab, the new facility will compete directly with the Covitec/Technicolor film processing lab.
Citelab has installed a U.K.-manufactured Photomec processing unit for 16mm, Super 16mm, 35mm and Super 35mm negative film. ‘The lab will basically feed all of Global Vision’s other post services,’ including its film-to-video telecine services, says GV sales manager Paul Bellerose.
Representing an overall investment of close to $5 million, Citelab offers processing, negative cutting and a range of inspection services, including film restoration.
The facility is high-security. Rooms are entirely pressurized with no recirculation of air.
Citelab has a ‘strategic relationship’ with Deluxe Toronto, which provides film-finishing services such as interpositives, internegatives and the production of release or distribution prints.
Productions processed at Citelab and at GV include the Muse Entertainment TV movie The White Chapel Vampire and the Canada/U.K./France coproduction Napoleon, coproduced by Montreal’s Transfilm. Citelab and GV are also handling the negative cut and HD transfer for Savage Messiah, which will be released in theatres this spring, with finishing (answer and release prints) done at Deluxe.
Jean-Yves Deschenes, GV’s chief customer officer, manages a wide range of distribution and multimedia services including NTSC/PAL conversions, international deliveries, DVD and website strategy and production.
GV is developing a B2B website concept for MTV Networks’ international sales department, a mandate Deschenes says is worth up to US$100,000. GV has been producing DVDs for MTV for the past three years.
Industry veteran Paul Gagnon is Citelab’s technical advisor. Francis Bourdua is technical engineer, and Jim Campabadal is the lab’s senior negative cutter.
GV’s post-production offices (telecine, offline and online editing, closed captioning and texturizer transfer, etc.) are located in the Cite du Multimedia in Old Montreal. Global Vision International, a full-service technical operation, is located in New York City.
-www.visionglobale.com