Formerly | Adlabs Films Ltd. (1975–2009) |
---|---|
Company type | Private company |
Industry | Mass media |
Founded | 1975Mumbai | ,
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Venkatesh Roddam (CEO) |
Revenue | ₹8.5 billion (US$100 million) (2011) [2] |
Number of employees | 1,566 (2011) |
Parent | Reliance Group |
Subsidiaries | BIG Synergy, Lowry Digital & Reliance Mediaworks UK [3] |
Website | Official Website |
Reliance MediaWorks Limited (RMW) is a film and entertainment services company and a member of the Reliance Group.
The company is one of India's film and entertainment services companies with a presence across several media businesses including the theatrical exhibition of films, television content production and distribution, and film and media services. The company facilities have been MPAA certified. Services provided by the company include Motion Picture Processing and DI, Digital Distribution, Audio Restoration and Image Enhancement, 2D to 3D conversion, Digital Master, Studios and Equipment rentals, Visual Effects, Animation and Post Production for TV Advertisements. RMW's operations are spread across India, UK and the US. [4]
RMW's television venture BIG Synergy is engaged in the television programming industry housing popular shows such as Kaun Banega Crorepati and Indian Idol.
Reliance MediaWorks' sound stages have also been utilized for events such as The Filmfare Awards, the movies Singham and Agneepath, and numerous television commercials.
The company was initially established as Adlabs Films Limited in 1975 by Manmohan Shetty. [5] [6] The company began to expand into the film industry and in 2001, the company entered the multiplex business, setting up the world's largest 3D IMAX screen in Mumbai.
In 2005, the Reliance ADA Group became a majority stake holder in Adlabs, and in 2009, it was renamed Reliance MediaWorks Limited. [7]
RMW expanded by setting up Asia's first Digital Intermediate Lab with a 4K facility. The lab was accredited by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. [8]
In 2008, RMW acquired a 100% stake in Lowry Digital, a renowned image restoration and enhancement services company based in Burbank, California. [9] Working on projects such as Avatar, [10] The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network, RMW's Burbank branch developed working relationships with Hollywood studios.
RMW also began to restore approximately 1,000 films from the National Film Archive of India.
On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on 16 July 2009, NASA tasked RMW to restore original video footage of the missing Apollo Moon landing tapes. Neil Armstrong expressed his appreciation, stating that "your restored video is now a valuable contribution to space exploration and space communication history…thanks for all you did beyond the call of duty. Our grandchildren and their grandchildren will benefit. [11] "
In early 2010, RMW acquired iLAB UK, a film processing and post production facility located in Soho, London. [12] [13]
By May 2010, the company commissioned a Media BPO in Airoli, Mumbai in order to handle projects exclusively for international clientele. RMW's Airoli facility was utilized to initiate a 2D-to-3D conversion BPO, an Animation studio and a VFX setup. The Airoli office also housed an image restoration facility where the company continued to work on restoring films from the National Film Archive of India.
The company expanded its offerings to their domestic clientele, commencing an equipment rental facility for cameras, lights and grips, and establishing a post facility for broadcast television clients in Mumbai's western suburbs. Projects they catered to included Dus Ka Dum, Jhalak Dikhla Ja and Femina Miss India.
Towards the end of 2010, RMW received an award in Creativity and Innovation from the Hollywood Post Alliance.
In early 2011, RMW commissioned one of Mumbai's largest indoor sound stages.
In March 2011, RMW received a patent called "Obsidian" for creating a method for removing semi-transparent artifacts from digital images caused by contaminants in the camera's optical path. This process received a significant amount of recognition within the entertainment industry, resulting in RMW receiving a Scientific and Technical Oscar from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [14]
RMW delved deeper into 3D film consulting, providing support during film shoots and advising filmmakers on 3D image alignments.
By the end of year, the company had provided post production services for 110 out of 114 Bollywood films that released in 2011.
In September 2012, RMW along with China's Galloping Horse acquired post production assets from Digital Domain, a legendary Hollywood studio founded by James Cameron. [15] The takeover (known as Digital Domain v 3.0) allowed RMW to participate in projects such as The Amazing Spider-Man , Transformers: Dark of the Moon , John Carter, The Smurfs, Green Lantern and Ender's Game.
By 2013, Reliance MediaWorks expanded its business by teaming with a variety of production companies as equity investors. Hiring Academy Award winning George Murphy as the company's Chief Creative Officer in April 2013, [16] RMW signed multimillion-dollar deals with Ethyrea Films [17] and Random Cow. [18]
In August 2013 RMW signed director Vadim Perelman as their Creative Director in India. [19] The following month, the company tied up with Turner International India for post production services of its entertainment channels. [20]
In 2014, Reliance Mediaworks and Prime Focus merged. [21] It sold big cinemas to Kochi-based Carnival cinemas for around 700 crores in 2014. Big cinemas have now been rebranded as carnival cinemas.
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original Star Wars, now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga.
3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3D film, and the lack of a standardized format for all segments of the entertainment business. Nonetheless, 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s driven by IMAX high-end theaters and Disney-themed venues. 3D films became increasingly successful throughout the 2000s, peaking with the success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009, after which 3D films again decreased in popularity. Certain directors have also taken more experimental approaches to 3D filmmaking, most notably celebrated auteur Jean-Luc Godard in his film Goodbye to Language.
Digital intermediate (DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics.
Visual effects is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian businessman, chairman and managing director of Reliance Group. The Reliance Group was created in July 2006 following a demerger from Reliance Industries Limited. He led several stocks listed corporations including Reliance Capital, Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Power and Reliance Communications.
Disney Digital 3-D is a brand name used by The Walt Disney Company to describe three-dimensional films made and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures mostly under the Walt Disney Pictures label and shown exclusively using digital projection.
DNEG is a British visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion studio that was founded in 1998 in London, and rebranded as DNEG in 2014 after a merger with Indian VFX company Prime Focus; it was named after the letters "D" and "Neg" from their former name.
Lowry Digital is a digital film restoration company based in Burbank, California. John D. Lowry was a Canadian film restoration expert and innovator who founded Lowry Digital Images in 1988.
Digital 3D is a non-specific 3D standard in which films, television shows, and video games are presented and shot in digital 3D technology or later processed in digital post-production to add a 3D effect.
Reliance Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian media and entertainment company. It is a division of Reliance Group, handling its media and entertainment business, across content and distribution platforms. The company was founded on 15 February 2005, as two entities, namely Reliance Big Entertainment and BIG Pictures. Four years later the two companies were merged into Reliance BIG Pictures in 2009, and the company's name was changed to Reliance Entertainment the following year.
Big Cinemas was an Indian movie theater chain. It was a division of Anil Ambani’s Reliance MediaWorks Ltd and a member of Reliance ADA Group.
Manmohan Shetty is an Indian entrepreneur who founded and developed Adlabs Films Ltd, one of India’s largest media and entertainment firms.
Legend 3D was an American stereoscopic conversion studio and multimedia company.
Big Synergy Media Limited is a television production company headed by chief executive officer Rajiv Bakshi. It started as one of the country's first few independent television outfits in 1988. BIG Synergy is an acknowledged leader in factual entertainment in India. It has produced some of India's most popular and critically acclaimed factual entertainment shows.
Identity FX, a post-production division of Identity Studios, Inc., is a Visual Effects (VFX) company and Stereoscopic 3D design studio located in Los Angeles. The company specializes in full-service visual effects and stereoscopic 3D conversion in post production.
Madhu Varma Mantena is an Indian film producer and entrepreneur involved in the production and distribution of films across Hindi, Telugu, and Bengali cinema.
Namit Malhotra is an Indian film and television producer and a business executive. He is the founder and non-executive director of Indian visual and special effects company Prime Focus Limited, the world's largest independent integrated media services company, and the chief executive officer of its British-Indian subsidiary DNEG which specializes in visual effects, animation and stereo conversion.
Merzin Tavaria is the Chief Creative Director and Co-founder of Prime Focus. He has been associated with the company since its inception and works in collaboration with the UK, US, Canada and India studios of Prime Focus.
Praveen Nischol is a producer, director and writer. He has made Feature Films, T.V. Serials and T.V. Commercials. He is the younger brother of Actor Navin Nischol.