Calgary-based video post, FX and animation house White Iron Digital is expanding south of the border and, on July 6, opened the doors to its new Southington, Connecticut, offices.

White Iron GM Brian Vos says the move will service existing U.S. clients, and was partially a response to pressure from established American broadcast customers including ABC and ESPN.

‘This has given us a wider range of opportunity, in that they see us as an American company,’ says Vos, explaining that White Iron would lose potential projects in the U.S. because clients wanted to keep work at home. ‘Many times we’ve been asked by those same clients, ‘Why don’t you open a place here?’ When you hear it often enough, it just starts to make sense.’

Heading up the new office will be editor/director Michael Sciallis, who Vos says was key to developing the company’s American client base.

Also key to establishing White Iron’s presence south of the border was Calgary-born creative director Jeff August. August founded White Iron Digital in 1997, but had been doing editorial, animation and design work for a wide variety of U.S. clients since the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Connecticut office is an all-HD facility with Avid DS Nitris and Avid Xpress Pro suites. Projects currently in the works at the new office include ESPN’s Sunday Night Football, X Games and SportsCenter. On X Games, produced by sister company White Iron Pictures, the post shop provides full finishing and graphics, as well as editing as many as 50 athlete interviews and adding animated elements.

In addition, the team at White Iron’s Calgary home base recently completed work on the HD documentary Icebound – The Final Voyage of the Karluk from Calgary production company Kaizen West for History Television. The project, directed by David Gullason and produced by Deb Proc, required integrating a black-and-white still from 1913 with live-action footage captured in HD, as well as 3D elements. White Iron’s Joanna Bisley headed up the project with animators John Cameron and Shane Holmes.

White Iron’s Calgary office also recently completed offline and online editing, final finishing, graphics and the opening title sequence on seasons three and four of the lifestyle series Open Homes for Global, produced by White Iron Pictures. Vos says about 40% of work at the Calgary office comes from in-house, while the remaining 60% is generated from other production companies and networks.

-www.whiteiron.tv