Steve Milne first purchased the Company in 2003 and then sold the majority of his shares in 2008 to Century Communications Ltd before making a complete exit from the Company in September 2010. The Indian company have invested substantially over the last four years, and the company was awarded Best Post Production House at  this year’s Broadcast Awards.

(Full story to come upon the completion of the sale)

Molinare worked with the Prometheus team throughout the entire pre-production process, testing the whole DI pipeline from shooting and digital dailies, through editorial and full DI post production, to the creation and review of 3D stereoscopic and 2D digital and film print deliverables. We were then delighted to host them at our central Soho offices during the film’s edit.

Molinare’s technical team attended the initial test shoot on the Red Epic camera, and set up an offline edit suite with 3D stereoscopic monitoring, testing various resolutions to find the optimum performance for the creative edit and review screenings.  We then conformed the edited sequence, testing EXR and DPX workflows, and performed geometric corrections, colour and depth grade in our 3D stereoscopic grading theatre, working with director Ridley Scott and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski to enhance the atmospheric look of the scenes.

To ensure the quality of final delivery, our team then created 3D stereoscopic and 2D digital cinema packages as well as a 2D film print, closely matching the tone and look for all mediums.  The whole team reviewed the deliverables closely on our Dolby 3D and Xpand projection theatres, as well as screening the test at a RealD cinema in London’s Leicester Square, and validated the entire workflow and colour management for digital and film.

When the film went into full production, Molinare hosted the offline editorial team in Soho and utilised a high speed private network to Pinewood Studios to transfer dailies directly to the shared edit storage.  The offline was carried out at high resolution and the output of the edit suites was fed directly to our main grading theatre to allow full 3D stereoscopic review throughout the offline process.

Our very own Gareth Spensley claimed the Number One spot, having received a great number of votes from his industry peers for his grade on ‘The Hour’ (for which he was also nominated for an RTS Award) and being described by Televisual as now being in the “superleague” since his much-lauded grade on last year’s Oscar-winning ‘The King’s Speech.’

Recent Molinare addition, Asa Shoul, also featured in the list at Number Eight for his work on ‘Strikeback’, ‘Attack the Block’ and ‘Stolen’ last year.

And last but certainly not least, Molinare’s Tim Waller also featured in the list at Number Ten, with Asa Shoul complimenting him on his “consistantly top standard and resourceful grading” on shows including Silent Witness.

Well done to the whole grading team here at Molinare – to feature so heavily in a National survey is praise indeed for their efforts over the past year, and is a real compliment to Molinare’s grading and DI departments. Onwards and upwards for 2012…

2011 was a year of highs for Molinare, including relaunching our brand (including an epic relaunch party!) and some truly fantastic  Broadcast  projects crossing our path.

One of the Broadcast highlights was our post-production of BBC2’s The Hour for Kudos Film and Television, which led to an RTS Award nomination for Gareth Spensley’s grade on the series. Producer Ruth Kenley-Letts, who has also teamed up with us on Silent Witness, said she was “blown away” by the work we completed on the drama series.

Our relationship with the MasterChef team continued in 2011 when we helped them  make the move to HD, providing technical support and a cloud-based review and editing service for the production to view and assemble rushes remotely

MasterChef series producer Karen Ross said: “Molinare is not merely a facilitator but a contributor, and there is nowhere else we would have received this kind of ongoing service.”

A huge thanks to all our clients, staff and supporters, who over the past year have helped us go from strength to strength, with the crowning glory being this accolade. We’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of 2012 will bring.

AAM, which has provided digital cinema content and distribution services to clients throughout Europe since 2006, will work with Molinare to provide services such as DCP (Digital Cinema Package) creation and reversioning for different territories, along with a full QC service in either of its two fully equipped digital cinemas, in London and Paris. The collaboration/combined services offering will also provide AAM clients the chance to benefit from a full managed post production service with Molinare.

Services available will also include distribution to cinemas globally – including the option of satellite transmission direct to cinema servers, or the alternative of distribution on hard drive or USB. AAM will also provide a full security key (KDM) management service to ensure content can only be unlocked by a specified cinema screen at the specified time.

Scott Holmgren, Molinare’s Chief Operating Officer, commented “Being able to offer this final step of digital cinema asset creation and distribution means that we can now offer our customers a totally integrated workflow through to getting their product to cinemas. Arts Alliance Media’s experience in the digital cinema world is unparalleled and we’re delighted to be working with them and looking forward to the new services we’re going to have on offer.”

Victoria Galloway, Content & Distributor Services Director of Arts Alliance Media added “Working as a partner with Molinare means that we can get involved with clients at an earlier stage and help them to plan requirements for their cinema release anywhere in the world, with everything from trailers to the final feature in different versions. We were impressed with the fantastic service Molinare provide to their clients, and the reputation they have for technical excellence, and we’re excited to work with them to bring the efficiencies and quality of digital cinema to more filmmakers.”

Recently-discovered footage that was originally cut from the British version has been restored by Molinare’s DI and Restoration team (overseen by John Palmer, Head of Digital Film Services) to the BFI’s  2007 restoration version. The Japanese footage features an extended and particularly gruesome death scene for Dracula, as well as a moment considered too erotic by the censors of the day.

In total, Hammer will be restoring over 30 titles.

5 January, 2012 | By Sarah Cooper

As one of the industry’s most respected and multi-award winning Colourists, Asa brings a wealth of experience and an expansive portfolio to Molinare, having graded over 35 feature films including Layer Cake, The Constant Gardener, Kick-Ass and Clash Of The Titans. He is also known for grading high profile TV dramas including HBO’s Generation Kill and Strike Back: Project Dawn.

Asa began his illustrious career in 1994 when he joined Framestore as a telecine colourist. Whist there, he became one of the pioneers of digital feature grading, helping to develop the Baselight grading system. In 1998 Asa won the International Monitor Award for his grading on Hallmark’s mini-series Merlin, and subsequently won two more of these awards for Hallmark’s Alice in Wonderland and Arabian Nights.

During a recent two year stint at Technicolor, Asa rebuilt their colour science pipeline and has been D.I. consultant on features such as Gulliver’s Travels, John Carter, World War Z, and Gambit.

Scott Holmgren, Molinare’s COO is delighted that Asa will be joining Molinare: “The addition of Asa to our already fantastic team of Colourists, coupled with our state of the art grading theatres, demonstrates to the industry that we have the resources to tackle even the largest studio productions.”

Gareth created the grade to subtly reflect the era without overpowering the emotion of the story. The show was shot digitally on the Arri D21, but the creative brief from the client was to give the pictures a rich filmic look.

The results were fantastic, with Chris Seager (Director of Photography for the series) saying that he was “delighted with the final look – the grade achieved everything we set out to create, and more.”