postPerspective

Digital Domain, the Oscar-winning visual effects and digital production company, has named Patrick Davenport as executive vice president, operations. With over three decades of experience in visual effects, post and creative services, Davenport will lead the company’s global operations strategy and support its next phase of growth. His appointment underscores Digital Domain’s commitment to industry client’s and innovation.

By Julian Nelson HDR is now over a decade old, but its integration into everyday production workflows still feels uneven, particularly when it comes to editorial. HDR is often treated as something that “arrives later,” with the next significant viewing experience for stakeholders taking place in the grade instead of on-set or in the edit suite.

Adobe has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Topaz Labs, which offers a line of advanced AI models for video and image enhancement that analyze and improve existing visual content by sharpening detail, removing noise, restoring footage and increasing resolution. Topaz Labs has developed proprietary AI models to support pro video use cases such as upscaling, sharpening, stabilization, frame interpolation, noise removal, footage restoration and more.

Remoto has completed an extensive update to Playback, its professional remote-review platform for media teams of all sizes. The release includes Remoto Capture Agent, a new companion application that enables hosts to stream from remote machines while managing review sessions from a local computer. With this new capability, companies can keep media on secure studio workstations and still have the flexibility to launch and control review sessions remotely.

By Randi Altman A new animated short premiered at Tribeca this year called Dear Upstairs Neighbors. Directed by Pixar alum Connie He, whose credits include Inside Out 2 and Love, Death & Robots, the film is a fun and relatable look at the “joys” of apartment living. It follows an exhausted Ada as she struggles to get some sleep while her upstairs neighbors seem determined to keep her awake.

Inspired by the MovieLabs 2030 Vision, Universal Pictures used the feature film Love Hurts to test an end-to-end cloud-based production and post workflow. Working with AWS, Company 3, Pixelogic and other partners, the studio moved key parts of the image pipeline — including original camera file (OCF) processing and storage, dailies, VFX plate pulls, conform, color grading and digital cinema mastering — into the cloud.

Academy Award-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren, ASC, FSF, (La La Land, Dune: Part Three), shot and directed a new campaign for Kalshi, an exchange dedicated to trading on the outcome of future events. The campaign stars actor Timothée Chalamet in three short films that will air across TV and social media. Created in partnership with boutique creative agency Es Muy Good, the campaign comprises a series of shorts shot on 35mm film for a handmade feel.

Waves Audio, a developer of professional audio signal processing technologies and plugins, has announced the release of V17, a major update across the Waves plugin line that introduces a redesigned preset management system; new live sound and post enhancements; and Mix Unlock, a feature within StudioVerse that gives users greater control over finished stereo audio.

By Greg Kahn Over Memorial Day weekend, Apple broadcast a live MLS match between the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo using 15 iPhone 17 Pros as the primary capture system. Traditional switching, audio and backend production workflows still supported the broadcast, but the capture layer itself relied entirely on consumer hardware. Most coverage framed the event as either a camera story or a product showcase.

Clipto, a Palo Alto-based artificial intelligence company, has launched a local AI memory platform that helps users instantly search, understand and organize terabytes of videos, audio, meetings and documents without sending data to the cloud. The company describes this emerging category as the memory layer for personal AI. During its launch, Clipto demonstrated the capability to help users search across terabytes of media files on their computer just using natural language.