Stefan Sonnenfeld is an American

Digital Intermediate Digital intermediate (typically abbreviated DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics. Definition and overview A digital intermediat ...

(DI) colorist, co-founder and president of

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. The ...

house

Company 3 Company 3 (CO3) is an American post-production company founded in 1997 by colorists Stefan Sonnenfeld and Mike Pethel and visual effects artist/supervisor Noel Castley-Wright. Rob Walston brought the team of artists together and funded Company 3 ...

, and president of VFX house

Method Studios Method Studios is a visual effects company launched in 1999 in Los Angeles, California with facilities in New York, Atlanta, Vancouver, San Francisco, Melbourne, Montreal, and Pune. The company provides production and post-production services i ...

. He has performed color grading/color correction on many commercials and feature films including the Pirates of the Caribbean and

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...

franchises.

Career

Sonnenfeld grew up in Los Angeles and after a summer job delivering dailies for popular 80s series ''Miami Vice'' his interest in post production was ignited. He worked at Pacific Ocean Post during the 1990s. Described by

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

as a "da Vinci of the movies," Sonnenfeld has worked as a DI colorist for films including ''

Watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 before being collected in a single-vo ...

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

Terminator Salvation ''Terminator Salvation'' is a 2009 American military science fiction action film directed by McG and written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. It is the fourth installment of the ''Terminator'' franchise and serves as a sequel to '' Termi ...

, 300,

Sweeney Todd Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as the villain of the penny dreadful serial ''The String of Pearls'' (1846–47). The original tale became a feature of 19th-century melodrama and London urban legend, legend. A barber fr ...

'' and ''

Dreamgirls ''Dreamgirls'' is a Broadway musical, with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. Based on the show business aspirations and successes of R&B acts such as The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others,G ...

''. As many commercial directors made the transition to long-form work, Sonnenfeld became increasingly involved in grading feature films, helping to pioneer the digital intermediate process. Sonnenfeld is among a handful of artists who have championed the telecine (and more recently DI) process. In 2007, ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' named Sonnenfeld to its list of "50 Smartest People in Hollywood" and Creativity-Online included him in its "Creativity 50" in 2008. Sonnenfeld also received the HPA Award Best Color Grading (Feature Film) for ''300'' in 2007 and was the recipient of the HPA Award Outstanding Color Grading (Commercial) for Pepsi "Pass" in 2009. In 2010 he received the HPA Award for Outstanding Color Grading Using a DI Process for ''Alice in Wonderland''.

Sunny Field Entertainment

In 2010, Sonnenfeld signed a first-look producing deal with

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

for his feature film production company, Sunny Field Entertainment. Based in Santa Monica, CA, Sunny Field is a portal for filmmakers in the commercial/music video space making the leap into features. Sunny Field's offerings include the traditional resources of a

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and ...

as well as state-of-the-art post-production services.

Selected filmography

Feature Films

As colorist, supervisor & executive producer

2021

2022

2023

Television

Music Videos

Commercials & Ads

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnenfeld, Stefan Living people American business executives Year of birth missing (living people) People from Los Angeles