Being co-operative, Kinepolis profits and who's the digital Daddy in Venice

I must confess that my exposure to the London post-production industry has mostly been limited to hanging out in the Blue Post and assorted other Soho pubs, listening to war stories by the likes of Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Phelan, Jon Thompson and whoever else was in the bar at that time. [LATER EDITION: I am in no way implying that hanging out in pubs is all the these three outstanding examples of Soho's post-production excellence.]

Although I got an inkling of it then, I've had it confirmed to me in the brief time that I've been in the building housing Deluxe, as well as EFILM London and Capital FX, the tremendous degree of co-operation that goes on between companies that you would think are at-each-others-throats competitors. The truth is that subcontracting, sharing and semi-necessitated co-operation is the order of the day, both in post-production and digital cinema. This is not a peacenik "let's all love each other and be friends" but a facto of survival in a small industry based on relations and trust.

In that spirit, I was glad to read about the three-digit record profits at Kinepolis (456% to be precise), which is in the process of using some of those profits to roll out digital cinema together with Thomson, Barco and Dolby. Whether it is Technicolor, Dolby, Arts Alliance or Deluxe rolling out digital cinema, we all stand to benefit from it at this stage.

In other news Doremi stakes a claim to the Venice Film Festival with the press release "Doremi Plays in Venice". This seems to somewhat contradict the claim that QuVis was the "preferred digital cinema player at the 63rd VFF, through a press release headlined "QUVIS PREFERRED DIGITAL CINEMA SYSTEM PROVIDER TO VENICE FILM FESTIVAL".

What is for me personally more interesting is that the title that people in this building have been working hard on, smart sci-fi thriller "Children of Men", has been feted by critics and even called the best entry in the festival so far, according to this review in The Guardian. Fingers crossed, it might have a digital release as well. Watch this space and little co-operation might do it.