Making movies real

From re-mastering the animation of renowned artist and filmmaker William Kentridge, to handling the video to film transfer on Leon Schuster's latest film, Video Lab has set a precedent on a lot of projects in terms of photo-realistic effects.

Featured among Video Lab's client base are names such as Warner Bros and Welsh television channel S4C.

"There are massive benefits to the work we are doing for the local industry," says Visual Effects Producer Desmond Allan.

"New technology is purchased that could otherwise not be afforded and new skills and experience gained from working on the international front can in turn be utilised on local projects."

Meeting the needs of its diverse selection of projects, the range of effects on offer include crowd replacement to save the cost of thousands of extras and burn effects to simulate fire scenes too dangerous to shoot. But CGI or computer generated images are not just about computers magically creating jaw-dropping special effects, they require talented artists with a keen eye for detail that is mostly employed on subtleties almost unnoticeable to audiences.