Prime Focus Gets Frantic, Post Logic

The U.S. film/TV community just learned that bicoastal post production/DI facility Post Logic Studios, with offices in Hollywood and New York, and Frantic Films visual effects company with offices in Los Angeles, Vancouver and Winnipeg, have been acquired by Prime Focus Group for an undisclosed sum.

Prime Focus Group, which is traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange, is one of the world’s largest integrated film, advertising and television post-production and visual effects companies, with six visual effects and post production facilities throughout India and four facilities in London.

“The Lexington Organization that has owned us for close to 20 years realized that the opportunities that Prime Focus offer in the climate of post production today were very good for the company itself,” says Post Logic CEO Larry Birstock. “Post production has changed a lot over the years. There are so few independent post facilities. The old model doesn’t work. I think there is a place in the market for the smaller, niche facilities, but studios and clients are looking for a one-stop shop, from pre-visualization to distribution in all formats and platforms. It’s coming down to an entity like the one we’re creating here.”

Started in a garage in 1997, Prime Focus has become one of the largest digital post facilities and VFX companies in India. “We have a clear leadership position, says founder Namit Mahlotra, who is the third generation in the film industry. His grandfather was a cinematographer who shot the first color film in India, 60 years ago, and his father is a Bollywood film producer who moved into the rental business. Mahlotra started the post production side of the company.

Prime Focus entered the U.K. market in May 2006 when the company purchased VTR, an umbrella for five operating units including VTR Limited, Blue Post Production, The Hive, The Machine Room and K Post. Shortly thereafter, Prime Focus also bought Clear Post Production, a visual effects company, and merged it with VTR. The number of people employed has remained steady, says Mahlotra, who stresses that he did not downsize any of the U.K. companies. “What we’re doing is increasing overall capacity,” he says.

Mahlotra expresses the same intent for the North American purchases. “We believe that both companies are at the stage where there is enough room for more work to pipe through the facilities,” he says. Prime Focus Group plans on an “integrated approach” from strategy to direction. “It’s a global story, not just Los Angeles or Canada or New York,” he says. “We’re definitely looking at much, much bigger avenues. We can go to any major content creators, be it feature film or TV and show them an interesting model.

That’s not to say that Mahlotra plans on rocking the boat too much at Post Logic Studios or Frantic Films. First, he plans no outsourcing of jobs and no re-branding. “They will all be part of the Prime Focus Group, a natural progression,” Mahlotra says. “Whenever we go into a new marketplace, we like to work with existing brands. These are entry points and goodwill for the clients who recognize those more quickly. I think we are very clear that the names will remain as they are. We ourselves have value based on the reputation, and we won’t be seeing downsizing. That is our strategy.”

Second, Mahlotra recognizes that, in the U.S., both these companies are already well entrenched with the feature film studios-and that focus won’t change. Post Logic Studios most recently provided services for “American Gangster,” “Halloween,” “Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” and others. Frantic Films worked on “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” “Journey 3-D,” and “Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer.”

He plans to add more capabilities to both facilities so they can pitch for “a bigger piece of the job.” Areas targeted for growth include DI, film mastering, visual effects and pre-visualization as well as restoration for DVD mastering.

Mahlotra also notes that the advantage of having facilities in multiple locations around the world is that filmmakers can work in the location of their choice as well as take advantage of tax incentives and rebates in the U.K., Canada and New York. The chance to open up a complete back-end operation in India or London also creates a better “value proposition,” offering competitive prices and effective solutions.

“Traditional post and VFX facilities have been stranded in their evolution because they can’t break out of their core geography or jurisdiction,” says Mahlotra. “We want to bring added flexibility to them. For example, in London, they’re known for high quality design and high aesthetics. The Frantic Film team has a huge R&D capability, and the Indian side offers breadth in being able to work on 300, 400 shots at one time. It’s the best of what each destination can offer, and it gives us an edge.”

Prime Focus Group has already tested out these global efficiencies with Fox’s 2007 “28 Weeks Later.” Mahlotra says some of the big 3D and bombing shots of the city of London were executed jointly between the U.K. and India. “Frantic Films also operates in that manner, doing modeling in Winnipeg and animation in Los Angeles and lighting in Vancouver,” he says. “None of it is higher or lower value, but trying to break down the job depending on the core skillset that fits the country or division. Rotoscoping and other laborious things will flow to lower cost destinations. But we hope to play the game from the higher value proposition.”

The Indian facilities have already developed an enormous capacity for work. “We did projects where we output close to 2,400 shots on two projects, between the U.K. and India,” he says. “Content creative was managed in London, and the VFX work was done almost entirely in India. Some 3D work was done in London, and compositing was done in India.” The total number of Prime Focus Group’s artists is almost 1,500 across all the facilities.

At the same time, Prime Focus Group continues to work on dozens of Bollywood features a year; they worked on 50 Bollywood films during the same three-month period they did the 2,400 VFX shots. “That’s the kind of scale we were able to output,” says Mahlotra. “A shared management to handle that scale is a strong differentiator with what we plan to do vis-à -vis other companies. We have the ability to use the India operation for scale, the niche creative companies and the kind of technologies and pipeline of Frantic Films and Post Logic Studios. You can get a big film done across our facilities in an absolutely effortless way.”

Currently, Post Logic Studios and the London facilities are connected via Sohonet, and Frantic Films has its U.S. and Canadian facilities connected via an independent network. Mahlotra says they are evaluating options for connecting the Indian facilities with everyone else.

Chris Bond, co-founder of Frantic Films, is enthused about the possibilities. “In pure manpower resources, we’re probably one of the largest VFX facilities in the world. We developed the pipeline and software for other facilities but didn’t execute the work, because we could only do so many shots. Now we have access to hundreds and hundreds of artists. As we continue R&D, I see no reason why we couldn’t compete, at a much larger scale.”

Post-production has been an industry with very thin profit margins for many years. “The post and VFX companies have actually lost traction,” says Mahlotra. “They’ve all managed to deliver great work and service, but it’s almost an impossibility to find companies that make money in this business. We’ve pinned this down more effectively; we feel we have a deep understanding of this. Yes, there’s competition, but we feel that the scale of this market is so huge that for us to get a small bit won’t be that difficult.”

“It’s critical to say that we’re a unique company that has built this fundamentally from scratch, and delivered value,” says Mahlotra. “Our scale has been achieved through sheer performance and delivery. Although we’re a public company, we’re very focused on our core deliverables and we know how that works. We like to believe we’re thinking two steps ahead.”

With the acquisition of Post Logic Studios and Frantic Films, the U.S. post-production and VFX market is about to find out how Prime Focus Group will deliver on those promises.