Sony Pictures Unites Sound Department, Digital Mastering Under ‘Digital Productions’ Umbrella

Consolidation continues – in this case, the converging companies were already corporate cousins.

Sony Pictures Digital Productions is pulling itself together.

Today, Sony Pictures Digital Productions (SPDP) announced that both the studio’s award-winning Sound Department and Colorworks, the studio’s digital intermediate facility, will move forward together under its umbrella.

As a result, SPDP now has a comprehensive range of post-production services that it can provide to the professional media production community. These include visual effects and computer animation, sound mixing and editorial and digital mastering, color grading, and film restoration. The Sound Department is home to the 2013 Oscar-winning team for “Best Sound Editing” on Zero Dark Thirty.

These moves coincide with plenty of action on the plate for both entities: production is currently underway for Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, and post-production is continuing apace on The Smurfs 2.

The intra-company merger should prove to be a formidable pairing, with all-under-one-roof workflows in expanding demand at all levels of production and post.

Here are more details, as explained by Sony Pictures Entertainment:

The announcement was made today by Bob Osher, President, Sony Pictures Digital Productions. Commenting on the announcement, Osher said, “These changes to the production organization will help us continue to provide our partners with the same world class suite of facilities and services they have come to expect from Sony Pictures Studios over the years, and I am thrilled to welcome the expertise of Colorworks and the studio’s Sound Department, with their incredible teams of experienced professionals, to Sony Pictures Digital Productions.”

These changes come following the announcement that Gary Martin, President of Sony Pictures Studios, will be retiring in 2013. Martin was responsible for opening the lot’s Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage and developing Sony Pictures Studios’ Sound Department into a world-leading facility boasting a stable of Oscar-winning Sound Mixers and Sound Supervisors.

Along with Sony Pictures Technologies President, Chris Cookson, Martin opened the studio’s digital intermediate facility, which introduced the industry’s first fully-4K workflow. Osher and Randy Lake, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Sony Pictures Imageworks, will work closely with the Sound Department’s Richard Branca and Tom McCarthy, and Colorworks’ Chris Holt, in managing the studio’s combined post-production operations.

Sony Pictures Colorworks’ 14,000 square foot facility, housed at Sony Pictures Studio’s Stage 6, features world renowned colorists and state-of-the-art technology offering real-time, 4K processing in a full digital workflow for top filmmakers from across the industry.

The Sony Pictures Sound Department boasts some of the world’s most sought-after sound facilities, and top sound editors with a combined 6 Oscar wins to the their credit, including the 2013 winner for Best Sound Editing, Zero Dark Thirty.

Sony Pictures Imageworks is the Academy Award winning visual effects unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions known for live-action visual effects, CG animation, and 3D imagery. Sony Pictures Animation is following its worldwide comedy hits – Hotel Transylvania, The Smurfs and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – with The Smurfs 2 in July 2013, and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 in September 2013.

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