| ROCKET PICTURES
Rocket Pictures Explores Space...Enough New Space to Accommodate Major Growth Continued business success has Seattle's Rocket Pictures exploring exciting new frontiers, including new equipment, new facilities and new client projects. The twelve-year old media production and design firm specializes in film, broadcast, sports, entertainment and corporate communications. Boasting five edit suites, a graphics department and full duplicating capabilities, Rocket Pictures' ten employees are producing top-quality work for clients like Fox Searchlight Pictures, PONCHO, Airborne Express, Alaska Airlines, MTV, Weyerhaeuser and Fox Sports. So much so, in fact, that their continued growth necessitated a major summertime move. "We're taking over a wonderful, 8,300 square foot building in (Seattle's) International District," said company president Les Fitzpatrick. "We're doing a custom build-out that will allow for even more equipment and make room for additional staff...response to our work over the last decade has been terrific and we're gearing to meet the expanded needs of our clients." Fitzpatrick, who co-founded Rocket Pictures with Dan Pepper, will be managing the move - in company growth and in neighborhood - flying solo. "Business partnerships, I think, are a lot like a marriage...and Dan and I had a great one. Dan really wanted to explore dot.com-ville," smiles Fitzpatrick, "and it was an opportunity that he needed to explore. We're still best friends and he's still on our advisory board...but we do miss him. Fortunately, he's just a phone call away." When asked what sets Rocket Pictures apart from some of the other production firms in the Pacific Northwest, Fitzpatrick says it's all in how you tell the story. "Our craft extends beyond mere visual form and logical data. It concentrates on the bigger picture...the power of the message exploited through the art of storytelling." MODERN DIGITAL Sifting Through Modern Digital’s Toolbox If your only tool is a hammer, the solution to every problem is a nail. Modern Digital features a plethora of great tools for image manipulation and the finest collection of artists, editors and colorists in the Northwest, matching the best and most appropriate skills to its clients’ job: Two FLAME suites with artists Jeff McInnis and Zach Pahl; 3-D animation in Alias MAYA (on Silicon Graphics platforms) and 3D Studio Max with artists Jon Segress and John Gera; a truckload of Macs and PCs with a variety of artists and animators, including longtime Northwest cel animation pro Terry Tennesen. Modern Digital’s editors, led by Dan Larson, have 2 Avid Media Composers and Discreet Logic’s SMOKE, the most versatile on-line editing suite in the region. SMOKE provides a screamingly fast on-line with most of the picture, text and graphics manipulation capabilities of FLAME included. Modern Digital also provides the Northwest’s cleanest film-to-tape transfer with a Rank Cintel Turbo 2, featuring Enhanced DaVinci windows with colorists Bruce Bolden and Sam Atkinson. The punch line to all of this, though, is that every machine talks to every other one! Modern Digital can do multimedia animations on Macs or PCs, then color correct them for video in telecine. Create television station graphics in MAYA or Adobe AfterEffects, then tweak them in FLAME. Draw cartoons on cels, ink and paint on PCs, SGI or Macs, then assemble backgrounds and composite in our edit suites. Then they can post that work to a secure site so clients can review it over the Internet! Speed and flexibility are important to the folks at Modern Digital. With their wide range of tool choices, they can match the best resources to the job. They work fast, keeping prices reasonable and helping clients deliver their work on schedule. |