‘The Witcher’ Proves Magical Showcase for Poland’s Rising VFX Trade

It was as early as 2010, as he likes to inform it, when Polish animator and visible artist Tomasz Bagiński lobbied his good friend Andrzej Sapkowski to make a film. Sapkowski is the creator of “The Witcher” sequence of fantasy novels, and Bagiński — already Oscar-nominated for his brief movie “The Cathedral” — had goals of taking the sequence to the large display screen.

Among the many venture’s early boosters was Platige Image, the Polish animation, VFX and post-production studio that Bagiński joined in 2004. When Netflix swooped in to accumulate the rights to “The Witcher” in 2017, the corporate was tapped to government produce alongside L.A.-based Hivemind. The Polish studio additionally turned one in all a number of homes to deal with particular results for the sequence, incomes an Emmy nomination for its VFX work on what has gone on to grow to be one in all Netflix’s greatest worldwide hits.

“The Witcher” has confirmed to be not solely a feather within the cap for Platige Picture, however for a fast-rising Polish VFX and post-production trade. Studios within the Japanese European nation are driving the rising demand for distant post-production and VFX work sparked by the pandemic, amid a surge in manufacturing worldwide as corporations race to make up for time misplaced to COVID-19.

“There may be extra quantity, for certain. It’s actually seen,” says Platige Picture CEO Karol Żbikowski. “The market is basically scorching proper now.”

The most important game-changer for the Polish trade has been a growth in home manufacturing pushed by Netflix and different streaming companies. Earlier this yr the Los Gatos-based streaming large introduced a slate of 18 authentic Polish characteristic movies and TV sequence and can be unveiling its new headquarters for Central and Japanese Europe in Warsaw later this yr.

“When Netflix got here to Poland, they compelled folks to get new information,” says Kamil Rutkowski, CEO of Warsaw-based post-production home Black Photon. The streamer set a excessive benchmark for technical requirements on its productions and, in an effort to meet these calls for, supplied free tutorials for native studios whereas serving to them adapt their workflows. “I believe Netflix did probably the most to show the trade,” says Rutkowski. “Throughout the final 5 years, the trade is rising actually quick by way of expertise.”

That progress is among the causes the Polish Movie Institute this yr will introduce a $50,000 money award at U.S. in Progress, an occasion working alongside Poland’s American Movie Competition that presents a number of roughly half a dozen American indie titles within the ultimate phases of manufacturing. This yr’s version takes place in Wrocław, Poland Nov. 9 – 11.

Together with $10,000 in-kind awards from main Polish post-production corporations, the PFI prize can be handed out to at least one profitable filmmaker to be spent on post-production, picture, sound and/or VFX in Poland. It’s a step towards “encouraging small and medium-sized unbiased [foreign] producers to get to know us and see for themselves what we are able to supply,” based on PFI director Radosław Śmigulski, who pointed to a 30% money rebate that may be utilized to post-production work within the nation.

Poland has a wealthy custom of cinematography, and native cinematographers — backed by an influential guild — have lengthy pushed the trade to take care of rigorous requirements. “They demand high quality, and corporations must match it,” says Łukasz Ceranka, a companion at Warsaw’s Fixafilm and the pinnacle of its digital restoration division.

The corporate has restored works by the likes of Orson Welles, Andrzej Wajda and Dario Argento and collaborated with establishments together with the British Academy of Movie and Tv Arts and New York’s Movie at Lincoln Middle. Ceranka says Fixafilm was additionally the primary post-production home in Poland — and among the many first on the planet — to undertake the Academy Colour Encoding System (ACES), which has since gone onto grow to be the trade normal for managing coloration throughout movie and tv manufacturing.

American filmmaker Joe Sackett, whose characteristic directorial debut, “Homebody,” took residence the prize for greatest first characteristic this yr at Toronto’s Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Movie Competition, went to Fixafilm for post-production after profitable an in-kind award on the U.S. in Progress occasion in 2020.

“They primarily left the door open for us to allow them to know what we wanted, and with out fail supplied all these issues for us,” he says, together with the movie’s titles, credit and pageant DCP. “Once we had been in late post-production, I knew that we might go to them for something, and they might assist us out.”

Whereas the pandemic has been a boon for post-production homes around the globe, as studios present an elevated willingness to do publish work remotely, that’s fueled fierce competitors for high VFX artists. That competitors, in flip, has pushed up costs in Poland, whose comparatively low wages and manufacturing prices have lengthy been a giant promoting level, based on Żbikowski.

Although new post-production homes proceed to enter the market, capability is a problem that threatens to gradual the trade’s progress. “We might not be capable of do ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Avengers’ in Poland,” admits Rutkowski. “There’s not sufficient folks expert in character animation.” Most of the high VFX artists within the nation, he provides, are as an alternative being swooped up by the booming online game trade.

It’s an issue that requires a radical rethink of how Polish artists are taught and educated. “There isn’t a correct schooling for abilities who wish to work solely within the film post-production trade,” says Alicja Gancarz of main Warsaw-based studio Orka. Rutkowski not too long ago established the Polish department of the Society of Movement Image Engineers, the commerce guild that units requirements for trade coaching worldwide, as a result of he was “searching for information” that he couldn’t discover in Poland.

Scaling up is the one logical answer — however that’s simpler stated than achieved. “Coaching VFX artists is a prolonged course of. You’ll be able to’t simply fill within the hole so rapidly,” says Żbikowski. Together with bolstering its Polish staff, Platige Picture has opened a studio in Los Angeles and is actively recruiting at trade conferences and occasions worldwide, with overseas staff making up roughly 10% of its workforce — and rising.

“The most important problem is discovering the precise folks, not discovering the precise tasks,” says Żbikowski. He laughs. “It’s a very good downside to have.”