Pandora International was an

Emmy award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

winning, English maker of hardware and software for

telecine Telecine ( or ), or TK, is the process of transferring film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in this post-production process. Telecine enables a motion picture, captured origi ...

control and

colour correction Color correction is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography, and other disciplines, which uses color gels, or filters, to alter the overall color of the light. Typically the light color is measured on a scale kno ...

post production Post-production, also known simply as post, 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 indivi ...

film editing.

History

Pandora International began trading in 1988 led by Steve Brett and Martin Greenwood, initially in

Northfleet Northfleet is a town in the borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. It is located immediately west of Gravesend, and on the border with the Borough of Dartford. Northfleet has its own railway station on the North Kent Line, just east of Ebbsf ...

. Pandora's twin

Motorola 68020 The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as t ...

Pogle could control telecine machines such as the

Spirit DataCine Spirit DataCine is a telecine and a motion picture film scanner. This device is able to transfer 16 mm film, 16mm and 35mm movie film, 35mm Color motion picture film, motion picture film to NTSC or PAL television standards or one of many High-def ...

FDL 60, FDL 90 and Quadra, and four video tape decks, for

field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

accurate editing including three-two sequence control. Later versions used

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

SGI Indy The Indy, code-named "Guinness", is a low-end multimedia workstation introduced on July 12, 1993 by Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI). SGI developed, manufactured, and marketed Indy as the lowest end of its product line, for computer-aided des ...

and

SGI O2 The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 uses a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its ...

computers. Pandora's DCP external colour corrector implemented Rec 601 and was one of the first able to directly accept

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

input from film or video tape, with support for

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

and

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

. The PiXi colour corrector was launched in 1995, to replace the DCP and supported video resolutions up to 1920x1080 at 30 frames per second. A version of PiXi was incorporated into Picasso from Post Impressions and used by

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...

for "

The Phantom Menace ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

" and "

Attack of the Clones Attack may refer to: Warfare and combat * Attack (fencing) * Charge (warfare) * Offensive (military) * Strike (attack) Books and publishing * ''The Attack'' (novel), a book * '' Attack No. 1'', comic and animation * Attack! Books, a publis ...

". In 1997, Pandora introduced the MegaDEF comprising two PiXi with an additional

multiplexer In electronics, a multiplexer (or mux; spelled sometimes as multiplexor), also known as a data selector, is a device that selects between several Analog signal, analog or Digital signal (electronics), digital input signals and forwards the sel ...

. It was the first commercially available system capable of 2048x1556 resolution in real time. The MegaDEF could be used with both Spirit DataCines and from 1999, the Philips Specter VDC-2000

virtual telecine A virtual telecine is a piece of video equipment that can play back data files in real time. The colorist-video operator controls the virtual telecine like a normal telecine, although without controls like focus and framing. The data files can be ...

and was controlled by a Pogle Platinum controller. 1998 movie '' Pleasantville'' included scenes where a MegaDEF removed selected colours. 2000 movie ''

O Brother, Where Art Thou? ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama musical film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Charles Durning, Michael Bad ...

'' was scanned by

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

with a Spirit Datacine and colour-corrected using a Pandora Pogle controlled MegaDEF at its

Cinesite Cinesite (also known as The Cinesite Group) is an independent, multinational business which provides services to the media and entertainment industries. Its head office in London opened for business in 1994, initially offering services in visu ...

facility in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

. The tree and grass backgrounds were changed from greens to a yellow/brown

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought) and hum ...

effect. Pandora was awarded an Emmy in 2001, in recognition of its pioneering work developing the concept of

digital intermediate Digital intermediate (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 intermediate often replaces or a ...

s. In 2001, Pandora International moved to nearby

Greenhithe Greenhithe may refer to: *Greenhithe, Kent Greenhithe is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is located east of Dartford and west of Gravesend. Area In the past, Gree ...

. It purchased Ingress Abbey as its headquarters but after a dispute with developer

Crest Nicholson Crest Nicholson is a British housebuilding company based in Weybridge, Surrey. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History 1963-2000 The company was founded by Bryan Skinner in 1963 as Crest Hom ...

, sold it in 2012. MegaDEF could be interfaced to the

Quantel Quantel was a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designed and manufactured Digital data, digital production equipment for the Broadcasting, broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries. It was ...

iQ using a proprietary

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

connection and systems were sold to

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...

during his filming of the

Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually developed into ...

trilogy. The company's final products included Evolution, an updated Pogle colour suite telecine controller and Revolution, a non linear colour corrector capable of 4096x3072 resolution in real time. Following a 2013 application by the Official Receiver, Pandora International was dissolved in 2016.

Gallery

File:EvolutionSideView.jpeg, Evolution Control Panel (Pogle) File:Pogle_control_panel_3.jpg , Pogle control panel and soft knob display File:Pogle_control_display.jpg , Pogle SGI display File:Pogle_control_panel_2.jpg , Pogle control panel and keyboard File:Pogle_display_close_up.jpg , Pogle display close up of

control menu File:Pogle_control_panel_1.jpg , Pogle control panel joyballs File:Pandora International Colour Correction System.jpg, Pandora system

References

External links

History of Telecines
{{VideoProcessing Technology companies established in 1988 Technology companies disestablished in 2016 British companies established in 1988 British companies disestablished in 2016 Technology companies of the United Kingdom Defunct companies of the United Kingdom Television and film post-production companies Film production Television technology Video hardware Greenhithe Film post-production technology Insolvent companies of the United Kingdom

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links