Stephen Lebed and Chip Potter opened the doors to Mechnology in June 2004. “Stephen came to me and asked if I would help him expand his visual effects company that was literally producing episodic visual effects out of his bedroom,” recalls Potter. “I had just finished rolling out the startup DI facility “ioFilm” (since sold to the New Post Group) and was looking for a new challenge. The biggest challenge I found out was that Stephen and I were to fund the entire business ourselves!”
As Mechnology celebrates the end of their third year, they now have a 2500 sq ft facility in Burbank. The office is close to the major studios and laboratories, and a short drive to and from Hollywood. The facility includes multiple visual effects creative suites, a machine room, negative prep area, film scanner, digital intermediate theater, editing rooms, production offices and a kitchen.
What began in a cramped Hollywood office with the single customer of Paramount’s episodic Charmed has now grown to include episodic clients Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill, Boston Legal, and Without a Trace, plus over 160 visual effects for the ABC-Family Original Movie The Initiation of Sarah. Additional visual effects were done for the The 2006 NBA Finals, Behind the Scenes of M:I-3, The 78th Annual Academy Awards, and Hallmark Entertainment’s The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb.
Not long after opening the doors, Chip was asked by title designer friend Dan Perri if he would like to work on the main title animation for the upcoming Martin Scorsese film The Aviator. As Chip explains, “Dan and I had worked on a few title projects in the past and I jumped at the chance to work with him on The Aviator. Stephen worked with Dan’s designs and created the 3d model and animation of the signature logo. I think it was the defining moment at Mechnology that Stephen and I had hoped; to create a facility that was all about the work. From that work Dan awarded us the main title sequences to Brett Ratner’s Santa’s Slay and Mark Rydell’s Even Money.”
Shortly after working on Santa’s Slay Mechnology was awarded visual effects work on the Jessica Lange drama Bonneville by SenArt Films producer Robert May. “At first we had only a few minor things to do,” says Potter. “but after reviewing the film and working with Robert we ended up creating over eighty visual effects and opticals. Robert was very pleased with the outcome of our visual effects work and gave us a shot at creating the main title animation. Because of the work we were doing on film projects we made our first major hardware/software purchase with Assimilate’s SCRATCH system and Rising Sun Research’s Cine Space Color Calibration software. Scratch allowed us to load all eighty visual effects shots onto a single system, color grade, apply a film LUT and review at 2k- 24fps. Bonneville was a traditional cut negative and laboratory film finish. This meant that we needed to provide Fotokem with a color timed negative that could be easily matched back into the original negative.”
“Mechnology has now entered its fourth year in business, and we're excited about the future,” remarks Potter. “Our focus is to continue on helping the filmmakers in this industry create the shots they envision, the looks they are after, and the visual effects that will help tell the stories they're creating.” |
