Exciting news for Pittsburgh!
31st Street Studios is ready to bring some high-powered and high-tech partners into its 330,000-square-foot former steel facility that it expects will further solidify its goal to make its Strip District facility a world-competitive movie and video game production hub.
Led by Principal Chris Breakwell, the company announced a three-way arrangement that will bring in Hollywood-based Knight Vision Studios, the motion-capture studio whose principal provided the computer-generated animation and digital production for the blockbuster movie "Avatar," to establish its capabilities at 31st Street. The studio does so in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, which also will establish a presence in the Strip District facility, beginning to house some of its classes at the studio facility this semester and giving its students a graduate-level curriculum and exposure to the latest in motion-capture and digital filmmaking.
On top of the motion-capture agreement, 31st Street also has established a long-term agreement with major Hollywood player Paramount Studio Group and its Paramount On Location division, which will offer production support services for such regular film production demands as lighting, grip and transportation. James Knight, the founder of Knight Vision, which he launched after a three-and-a-half year assignment on "Avatar," a film that’s considered groundbreaking for its extensive use of computer-generated film techniques, said in a prepared statement that the opportunity to work with 31rst Street was a unique one.
“The environment at 31st Street and the cooperation with CMU’s ETC make this a unique opportunity,” said Knight. “We’re going to do things no one else is doing anywhere.
Don Marinelli, executive producer of the ETC program, described enormous potential for the Knight Vision technology to be set up at 31st Street that converge in different industries and in ways that have yet to be fully explored.
“The digitization of filmmaking provides myriad opportunities for the creation of new forms of visual expression, immersion, storytelling and gaming,” he said in a statement. “Having Knight Vision System at 31st Street Studios will give ETC students a tremendous opportunity to advance filmmaking in Pittsburgh.”
The deal with Paramount comes after the studio spent months using the facilities at 31st Street in shooting the Tom Cruisemovie “One Shot,” as well as after the studio facility hosted the last installment of the Batman franchise last summer, a Warner Brothers production.
No specific terms of all the financial agreements involved were divulged. No estimated cost for installing the new motion-capture capabilities was disclosed, either.
Randy Baumberger, president of Paramount Studio Group, described the 31st Street facility as ”the perfect gateway to many of our major partners across the East Coast,” calling the complex an “ideal location” in which to expand its production services.
Breakwell, whose Gateway Entertainment Studios LP bought the studio property in May, said the partnerships will play an important role in making Pittsburgh a key destination for filmmaking in the years to come.
“Our idea from the beginning was to create the best facility of its type in the country," he said. "We’ve gone a long way toward that goal in our first year, and these partnerships will continue to help cement Pittsburgh as a production environment unrivalled throughout North America.”
Breakwell does so with the firm support of Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who welcomed Paramount on Location and Knight Vision Studios to the region and expressed hope to see the region continue to bring more productions to the region, further helping to boost the local economy.
Read more at bizjournals.com/pittsburgh.
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