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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact:
Erika Powelson
Powelson Communications
831-424-1811
erika@powelsoncommunications.com
Company Contact:
Paula Lumbard
FootageBank
310-822-1400 x105
paulal@footagebank.com


FOOTAGEBANK LIBRARY EXPANDS HD OFFERINGS

Pushes Definition of Footage to Include 3D Animation

LOS ANGELES, CA -- October 21, 2003 -- Paula Lumbard, founder and president of FootageBank, is once again leading the stock footage industry into unexplored territory. After founding the first footage company dedicated to High Definition (HD) native content in 2002, Lumbard is now partnering with Mark Butler at Butler Digital to output computer-generated 3D animation to HD.

Available to footage customers beginning in late October, these 3D CGI images take weeks to render into the HD format. The Post Group in Los Angeles has been working with FootageBank and Butler Digital (http://www.butlerdigital.com) in the testing phase of creating these new images, which include futuristic cities, space scenes, volcanoes, industrial technology images and animated weather graphics. FootageBank will be offering 3D animation as a new, inexpensive HD special effects option for film and television producers.   

"Often, clients call without a clear idea of what they are looking for and instead are asking for help in illustrating a concept such as 'the future,' 'speed,' or 'creativity,'" said Lumbard.  "Working with Butler Digital allows us to offer clients shots they may never have conceived of and to take them to places they never knew they wanted to go."

Closing in on its two-year anniversary, FootageBank has worked hard to diversify and expand its High Definition footage offerings. In the past few months, FootageBank has acquired several significant new HD collections that span continents and subject areas.

  • FootageBank has signed on the exclusive stock rights to *looping productions, one of the first HD companies coming out of Paris, France. *looping productions develops and produces HD content with an emphasis on culture, ethnology and social affairs. Images from this collection include day and night HD coverage of the Middle East, Japan and France. *looping productions will be creating HD footage for FootageBank on demand according to client needs. (http://www.looping-productions.com)
  • FootageBank is exclusively representing the stock rights for Sacred Balance, a new HD series produced by Kensington Communications in Toronto, Canada. Filmed on five continents, this natural history series includes interviews with philosophers, scholars, priests, and shamans, all of whom share their visions and perspectives of the universe. The images in the collection cover science, space, and environmental categories. (http://www.kensingtontv.com)
  • HD footage from Antarctica comes to FootageBank from world-renowned documentarian Norbert Wu. Wu, based in California, has worked as the chief still photographer for Jacques Cousteau's Calypso, as a research diver for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and as a cinematographer for numerous television productions.  The 30-hour collection features rare images of underwater ice tunnels and penguin daily life. (http://www.norbertwu.com)
  • FootageBank has partnered with The Lab at Moving Images in New York to transfer 35mm film footage from China and India to HD D5, making HD coverage of urban and rural life in these countries available to footage clients for the first time.  (http://www.MIPost.com)

"The FootageBank HD library now represents over 50 HD producers, cinematographers and production companies from around the globe offering the largest and most diverse HD library in the world.  In the time it takes for a TV or movie producer to call me, they can incorporate into their production images that are as varied and diverse as the human imagination," concluded Lumbard.

About Paula Lumbard
After a career of producing special effects for feature films, Lumbard opened her first stock footage company, Film Bank, in 1985. Over the span of 13 years, Film Bank became a leading stock footage company serving the entertainment industry.  Lumbard sold Film Bank in 1998 and became VP of Content Development within Sekani, pioneering their new Royalty Free division out of the New York office.

About FootageBank
FootageBank is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, California founded by industry icon Paula Lumbard. Lumbard anticipated the coming demand for High Definition (HD) Motion Content in 2002 when she opened her second footage company. FootageBank continues to be the only footage house specializing in HD native content and is dedicated to shooting and aggregating collections of HD images to service the rapidly growing demand for HD content in the film and television marketplace. For more information, please visit www.footagebank.com.