Dan Krech is networking, but more than this, he’s doing it his way. This summer, Krech, president of 10-year-old production and post company Dan Krech Productions, trademarked Infinity Optics, a network system which harnesses all the processing power and resources of the diverse hardware, software and talent in dkp’s homey Toronto offices and increases the number of software solutions brought to projects coming into the facility.

Infinity Optics is an open-architecture flexible system that expands the possibilities for the speed, creativity and locus of work. The network’s real-time speed is made possible by fiber optic lines; number-crunching power comes from an Onyx 4 processor; and a Ciprico RAID 6700 disk array, still in prerelease, provides 100 gigabytes of disk space.

Justifying its name, the system is unlimited, infinite, one might say, in the number of workstations and software applications that can incorporated.

‘The beauty of it technically is that we can add as we go,’ says Krech. ‘It has a very long life because of the open architecture; the way to upgrade is to add more hardware and software into the network. If we wanted to add Flame, or any Unix-based software system, we could.’

Currently the network is comprised of four Indigo 2s, the newly acquired Onyx, an Indigo, two Indys and a Power Series. The network is also plugged into dkp’s Imagica 3000 Digital Film Scanner, a Solitaire Cine II Digital Film Recorder and 11 Abekas ddrs.

The network is resolution independent; any size file can be imported, and work done within wide parameters, from one megabyte or lower to half a gigabyte for super high resolution.

According to an enthused dkp staff, the system allows them to think outside the box – literally and figuratively – and fosters creative choices which are job-appropriate rather than machine-appropriate.

‘Rather than a closed box, like a Henry which is worth about a million dollars, it’s a whole series of computer workstations of varying sizes and capacities and a whole series of all the best software for any given task,’ says Jackie Lynette, partner at dkp. ‘We don’t want to compromise the job by pushing something through cgi or through stop motion when that’s not the best way for the client to approach an effects job.’

Current software options available at all connected workstations include Kaleidoscope/Kadenza, Matador Paint, Ice, Mojo, Cinefusion, Prisms 3D and Amazon 2D and 3D paint.

‘A one-solution box can be outdated in eight months when the next hot thing comes out,’ says dkp producer Ted Rogers. ‘You also wind up having to constrict and conform your creative concept to that box because it has limitations.’

Office-wide access to the varied steps in the post process also means the distinct roles of dkp’s post professionals become melded.

‘Because all the software is everywhere and integrated the process is not so separated,’ says Rogers. ‘The 3D or paint elements might be created in the edit suite and the cgi people can now actually do compositing from their box. Things are done where they’re most convenient.’ Which, says animator Paul Clark, means more creativity, faster turnaround time for the client, and ‘no unpleasant aftertaste.’

A sequence for the feature film Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog, which transformed a calm ocean into a raging tempest, took about 16 hours per frame to render. According to Krech, that could potentially be whittled down to 10 minutes per frame with the entire network’s computer power and parallel processing happening all over the facility.

Krech says the expansion went well into seven figures with dkp’s existing hardware, but estimates that from scratch, the network components would be valued at $2 million to $3 million.

Lynette says fiber optic infrastructure was cost prohibitive as of early summer and isdn lines were considered until fiber prices became manageable. Krech says fiber optics created bottlenecks in constructing the network, but adds fiber and disc technology are evolving at dizzying rates.

In ongoing efforts to provide software solutions, dkp has arrangements with software developers, including Prisms and is a beta site for Chalice, a 2D image composition and adjustment software.

There are open-ended possibilities for expanding the network globally, says Krech, an advantage for dkp, which does business in several u.s. cities and in Europe. The company recently announced an association with OPEN Films of Culver City, Calif., which Krech says will be linked to the Toronto office.