18 February 2011, Singapore – By August 2012, Singapore’s media landscape will reach a significant milestone with the opening of Infinite Studios, a joint venture between Ascendas-Citramas where a world-class media eco-system will be operating physically under one roof at One North, Mediapolis.
Infinite Studios, dubbed “The Studio of the Future”, will be a 260,000 sq foot facility. It will comprise approx. 45,000 sq foot of Singapore’s first soundstage facilities and supporting production offices and another 215,000 sq foot to be tenanted to inter-related media companies and lifestyle and F&B related services, and will offer an entire value chain of media related services for the local, regional and international media community.
Infinite Frameworks, a leading media company that focuses on content investment, post-production, visual effects and animation services with offices in Singapore and Batam, will be the lead anchor tenant for the facility and will also manage and operate the soundstages.
Moving firmly into infrastructure is a natural evolvement for Infinite Frameworks whose range of services in post-production, visual effects and animation will be further augmented with the addition of these state of the art soundstage facilities. The soundstages will aim to facilitate international standard visual effects projects requiring a blend of quality, craft and cost elements that cannot be achieved elsewhere.
“While remaining dominant in our core expertise, Infinite Frameworks has capitalized on its knowledge and experience to move further upstream in the media value chain. This is significant in the context that we are a local company with a truly global business. Given the demand for heavy visual effects content worldwide including the rising need for pre-visualization, the investment and bold move into this area is timely,” said Mike Wiluan, Managing Director, Infinite Frameworks.
To live up to its billing as the “Studio of the Future”, Infinite Frameworks has also entered into a collaboration with HP, the world’s largest technology company with deep experience and expertise in the digital media space. HP is working with IFW to provide the tenants of Infinite Studios with cutting-edge digital media technologies and IT on a cloud computing model. Tenants will be able to buy and use digital media and ICT services such as remote computing, rendering, storage and collaboration services on a pay-per-use basis. The first set of cloud services is targeted for roll-out when Infinite Studios is completed in Aug 2012.
“IFW, as well as the larger digital media community in ‘Studio of the Future’, have to show they can produce cutting-edge work within tight production deadlines and provide quick time-to-market in order to land projects,” said Kelly Tan, vice president and managing director, HP Singapore. “Cloud services provide them the flexibility of sourcing and using secure services quickly to support their projects, without having to make any significant investment in new IT infrastructure.”
IFW’s relationship with HP started way back in 1997 when IFW was founded and was already using HP’s desktop PCs. However in 2005 when the company was tasked to produce its first animated feature, “Sing to the Dawn”, the challenge IFW faced then and is still facing now is the delicate balance between their dreams (the pursuit of creativity) with reality (business costs). One of the strategies the management took to maintain that balance was to find a technology company who can help build a pipeline of reliable, scalable, and high performance technology solutions to fulfill both short- and long-term business requirements.
The soundstages were designed in consultation with Raleigh Studios, a leading Hollywood based studio consultant sought after worldwide for its feasibility studies and guidance on developing studio operations. With over 2 million square feet of sound stage, office and support space, the Raleigh Entertainment companies; Raleigh Studios, Raleigh Film, Hollywood Rentals, Olesen Lighting, and ESS, comprise the largest independent studio and production support operation in the United States. Raleigh Studios has locations in Hollywood, Manhattan Beach, Playa Vista, Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Detroit and Budapest. With significant design and operational inputs from Raleigh Studios, Infinite Studios will be able to offer international standard production support and services for its soundstage operations.
“With productions spanning the globe to utilize the best technology and talent, this addition to the Singapore production infrastructure is a welcomed sight. We are proud to be part of such an important project for Singapore and proud to support the continued growth of such a reputable company as IFW,” said Michael Moore, President of Raleigh Entertainment & Raleigh Studios.
GlobeCast, a subsidiary of France Telecom and a leading global media service provider of content management and worldwide transmission services for professional broadcast delivery will be operating its satellite teleport and digital distribution facility from Infinite Studios. GlobeCast, with its 12 teleports and technical operations centers as well as its 17 offices in Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia will add significant value to the users and tenants of Infinite Studios whereby content can be digitally managed with ease using GlobeCast’s digital media asset management services and “live” events produced within the soundstages will have the ability to be broadcast or stream “live” from Infinite Studios. GlobeCast’s 24/7 MCR and HD playout suite will move to Mediapolis from Parkview Square, bringing along with it its roster of clients in Asia which includes top-tier channels AXN HD, FX, History Channel HD, MGM, NBC Universal and National Geographic HD.
With the growth of digital content and digital consumer platforms, content creators and their partners across the media ICT value chain can connect and manage their workflows seamlessly under the GlobeCast Digital Ecosystem, enabled by high speed connectivity.
Darby Sanchez, CEO of GlobeCast Asia, said: “This significant move and expansion will help GlobeCast to grow its service offerings in the light of regional digital growth opportunities. Furthermore, content producers, editors and managers across the entire media ICT value chain can take advantage of the GlobeCast Digital Ecosystem platform which will extend from the Mediapolis hub to Asia and beyond, for ease of collaboration and new ways of working.”
Infinite Frameworks, in collaboration with the MDA, EDB, JTC and IDA, will work closely with the government agencies to attract international media collaborations into Singapore. By having a world class production infrastructure that will also include support in the areas of content and media financing and incentives and access
to the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (NGNBN), Infinite Studios is well positioned to be become a leading media player to cater to the needs of the fast growing global media industry.
About Infinite Frameworks
Infinite Frameworks (IFW) has evolved to become a major media player with operations spanning across the media value chain from their beginnings as a post production facility. Infinite Frameworks opened its doors in 1997 as a 30 man post production facility and within 7 years, the company has been recognised as one of the leading post facilities in Asia garnering multiple International awards and obtaining a global clientele along the way.
In 2004 Mike Wiluan came on board and expanded the business based on the company’s core strengths in (VFX) and CGI animation. Infinite Framework’s sister company based on the island of Batam was created to produce Singapore first English animated feature film “Sing to the Dawn) and has since grown to become one of the region’s largest animation studio housing over 200 artists- producing acclaimed content (from Canada and France) such as Garfield, Rollbots and Franklin the Turtle.
Upstream value chain development has been a constant direction and since 2007, Infinite Frameworks has actively participated in producing and co-financing production content in both film and television for a worldwide audience. Notable collaborations include co-productions with AETN, NELVANA (Canada) and DARLOW SMITHSON PRODUCTIONS (UK). IFW also entered into a joint venture agreement with long time partner Eric Khoo’s Zhao Wei Films to create a horror/thriller genre label called Gorylah Pictures and have since released its first horror film called “Darah” and is in the pre-production stage for its second horror film.
Infinite Frameworks’s post production business has seen a tremendous evolvement in providing bespoke services to both broadcasters and long form content producers who require significant post production pipelines. Infinite Frameworks (enjoys an exclusive post-production contract deal with Emmy winner Mark Burnett Productions) and has worked on numerous international reality formats such as Mark Burnett’s Contender and Contender Asia along with Imagine Omnimedia and Hallmark Channel’s Biggest Loser Asia. IFW also provides post-production services to Discovery Asia Inc under a long term service contract deal.
About GlobeCast
A subsidiary of France Telecom/Orange, GlobeCast is a leading provider of media management and global content delivery services for broadcasters and content creators. With a secure fiber and satellite network connected to dozens of teleports, technical operations centers and points-of-presence worldwide, GlobeCast manages and transports millions of hours of video and other rich media each year. An integrator of audiovisual technology and a full service provider, GlobeCast works with all the actors in the audiovisual chain from production companies to broadcasters, retail organizations, cinema chains and more. The company provides on-site service from major news and sporting events for coverage in SD, HD or even 3D. Present in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia, GlobeCast is also an expert in international television markets, and works with new and established broadcasters to reach and secure distribution with leading pay TV operators around the world.
About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.
PR Contacts
Allan Kwan, Infinite Frameworks
+65 6223 1262 ext 898 (DID)
Vanessa Ching, GlobeCast
+65 6325 4222 (DID)
Jorina Choy, HP
+65 6572 0351 (DID)