Buzz Image Installs FrameCycler Site-Wide

Leading Montreal Animation and VFX House Selects IRIDAS for Playback

Munich: November 14, 2006 … IRIDAS, the industry leader in uncompressed playback technologies, today announced that Buzz Image Group Inc. has purchased FrameCycler DDS and a site license of FrameCycler Professional. The software-based systems provide instant playback of work-in-progress at the push of a button.

“FrameCycler is very, very fast and it supports the file formats we use,” said Francois Lord, CG supervisor at Buzz. “We were not satisfied with the flipbook tools in our other applications. About a year ago we found FrameCycler and it had everything we wanted. The command line capability allows us to integrate it with our production software and our in-house tools.”

Buzz has made a name for itself with innovative commercial and feature film work, such as Brokeback Mountain, on which the facility did all the VFX shots. “We enjoy doing high quality feature films,” said Executive Vice-president Benoit Drouin, “and we work hard to be the best in all our film and commercial projects.” Among other things, Buzz created the beaver characters for Bell Canada which have been a hit with TV audiences across the country. So far, Buzz has produced close to 40 spots for Bell with many more in the pipeline. “We have a whole team of artists working full-time just on the beavers,” said Drouin.

Buzz is using the direct-from-disk playback capabilities of FrameCycler DDS for review sessions in their 3D department. “It allows us to watch longer sequences so that we can see shots in context and get a sense of continuity,” explained Francois Lord.

FrameCycler Professional (RAM-based playback) and FrameCycler DDS are members of the FrameCycler family of uncompressed playback applications. For more information visit www.iridas.com, or contact IRIDAS at +49 89 330 35 142 or IRIDAS USA at (818) 951-8927.

About Buzz Image Group
Buzz specializes in editing, visual effects, 3D animation, and design, for films and commercials. Their latest film projects include The Covenant from director Renny Harlin, Ang Lee’s award-winning movie Brokeback Mountain, and The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronosfsky. Some of Buzz’s recent notable commercial work includes the latest Ford Fusion commercial, directed by Ian Robertson’s Avion Films, Filtrohelada and Chapita, for the newest Coors Light advertising campaign, and a Duquesne Light TV commercial Bringing new energy to Pittsburgh. To see more, visit www.buzzimage.com.

About IRIDAS
IRIDAS pioneered desktop film-resolution playback in 2001. Its FrameCycler products are now the industry standard for frame-based image review. In 2003 IRIDAS introduced the first non-destructive color correction application. Today SpeedGrade and FrameCycler provide a complete, end-to-end pipeline for uncompressed content and color data. IRIDAS' applications are used by most major animation and post-production houses including Warner Bros. Feature Animation, Industrial Light & Magic, The Moving Picture Company, ReelFX, Cinesite, The Framestore CFC and many others. IRIDAS is an independent, privately held company headquartered in Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.iridas.com.