Cinesite (Europe) Wins Special Area Award at LEAF 2001 For Band of Brothers

LONDON - At the recent LEAF (London Effects and Animation Festival)Awards, Cinesite (Europe) Ltd. won the Special Area Award for its workon HBO's "Band of Brothers"

miniseries. Cinesite Europe was responsible for creating most of thechallenging digital effects in "Band of Brothers". Key members of the3D team on the project were Mike Mulholland and Chas Cash, whovariously modelled and animated airplanes, parachutes, and CG soldiersfor major sequences in the series. Angus Bickerton ("Animal Farm","Lost in Space", "The Adventures of Pinocchio") served as visualeffects supervisor on the project, while Cinesite’s digitaleffects supervisors were John Lockwood and Ken Dailey.

One of the most notable animation sequences in Band of Brothers wasthe Eindhoven parachute drop from episode three, which re-creates thehistoric WW2 event with a sky full of computer generated parachutes,men, and airplanes. The sequence had been re-created in the earlier warfilm classic, "A Bridge Too Far," with real planes and parachutists.While it was not feasible to re-create the sequence in live action forthe miniseries, that film was a useful reference to Cinesite’steam of creatives, who faced challenges related to the dynamics of theopening and closing parachutes, as well as the luminosity of the chutesas they pass across the sun.

Modeling and animation was completed using Alias Wavefront’sMaya and composited using Cineon. Cinesite created approximately 250digital shots for the miniseries.

"Band of Brothers" was entirely shot on Kodak Vision camera negativefilm stock, and and Cinesite completed an all Cinesite/Kodak filmprocess by creating a groundbreaking digital master of the series atits London offices. The 10 one-hour episodes were the data equivalentof about six feature films - a digital master on this scale had neverbeen attempted before.

The series was colored by by colorist Luke Rainey at Cinesite.

Regarding the LEAF award, Colin Brown, CEO of Cinesite Worldwide,said, “This prize, awarded in our hometown by people whorecognize the phenomenal quality of work produced by London facilitieson major international productions, means a great deal to all of ushere at Cinesite Europe.”

Cinesite’s scanning and recording team also did the recordingfor the winner of the Short Film prize at the awards--"Fifty PercentGray," from Ardmore Studios/Zanita Films.

For more information about the LEAF awards, go to Web site,www.digmedia.co.uk.