With Toronto gearing up for a busy summer of guest production, Deluxe Sound & Picture expects to be up and running on the cutting edge of video post by mid-June.

Deluxe picked up the technical resources to launch digital intermediate services at its Toronto facility when its parent company acquired Hollywood digital lab EFILM last year. (It is branding its DI services as Deluxe EFILM.) Digital intermediates, which represent the future of video post – and to large extent, the present – involve the creation of a high-resolution digital master of a movie or TV ep before it is written out to another medium, such as film.

DIs benefit productions by opening up all the efficiencies and the creative palette of the digital domain throughout the post process. It allows for all facets of post, including assembly, color correction, quality control and FX to be performed in the digital domain before going out to the release medium.

(International competitor Technicolor has a DI system of its own in Toronto, which it got in its acquisition of Command Post’s Toybox facility.)

‘It’s going to add another dimension to our business here,’ says Dan McLellan, Deluxe executive VP & GM. ‘It allows us to capitalize on the good work EFILM has done in the last decade, and it’s good for the market here.’

Director David Cronenberg brought his new feature, A History of Violence (currently vying for a Palme D’Or at Cannes), to Deluxe for processing, printing, HD dailies, and a full-service sound mix. A DI was achieved remotely through EFILM in Hollywood.

Violence, with a US$32-million budget financed by New Line Cinema, is essentially a Hollywood picture – the kind with deep pockets that Deluxe is relying on to make its expensive DI venture worthwhile. (The shop would not disclose the amount of its investment in upgrades to its Toronto facility.)

In terms of the price tag on the Deluxe EFILM service, the company would only say that it varies by project. Andy Sykes, Deluxe VP business development, acknowledges, however, that it could be prohibitive to local projects.

‘It’s a bit of a shock to producers when they hear the cost, especially here in Canada,’ says Sykes, who, as cofounder and former VP of Command Post and Transfer, was instrumental in launching DI services in what is now the Technicolor facility. (See story, opposite.) ‘But it’s a whole new technology,’ he adds.

And so Deluxe is also reaching out to the more cash-strapped Canadian producer with DI Lite, which, at a price tag of $50,000 to $80,000 less, provides a slightly less robust service that uses HD technology for image capture, editorial and color correction. (The premiere Deluxe EFILM path, on the other hand, is at a fully digital uncompressed 2K resolution throughout.) The shop says it has four projects lined up for Deluxe EFILM and one for DI Lite when those capabilities come online in June.

McLellan says that Toronto is already known as a production destination, and now Deluxe is doing its bit to make the city more of a post destination as well. Projects that have traditionally posted in Toronto are ones that have shot there, but Deluxe wants to see that client base expanded. And it is starting to – he points to the Lions Gate horror feature Catacombs, which is shooting in Romania but coming to post at Deluxe.

Whereas Deluxe had built a reputation in the past for its audio capabilities, with EFILM, it wants to be seen as ‘on par with anything in L.A.’ on the video side as well, says McLellan.

Recent and upcoming projects Deluxe is helping with post services include the features Land of the Dead, Truth, Justice and the American Way, Silent Hill, 16 Blocks and Get Rich or Die Tryin’, the TV series Beautiful People, and the MOWs Four Minutes and Secret Santa.

-www.bydeluxe.com