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Acquisition Boosting Future of Technicolor in Post Production

Acquisition Boosting Future of Technicolor in Post Production By CARLOS MARTINEZ Staff Reporter In another step toward moving away from its traditional film stock and videotape business and into post production, Technicolor Inc. has acquired Los Angeles-based Pacifica Media Affiliates. As part of the acquisition of Pacifica Media, the terms of which were not disclosed, Technicolor takes over the company’s sound editing and mixing facilities for films and television programs. The acquisition includes Echo Sound Services, Weddington Productions, Digital Sound Works and Pacifica Sound Group. The companies have collectively received two Academy Awards for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Robocop.” They have also won 12 Emmy Awards and a number of other awards. “This strategic acquisition broadens our customer base for audio services as well as the scope of our audio offerings for film, broadcast and gaming production communities,” said Bob Beitcher, president of Technicolor’s Creative Services unit. The deal comes six months after Camarillo-based Technicolor acquired Miles O’Fun sound post-production studio in Burbank in an effort to diversify the company, which relied on its core film stock and videocassette manufacturing business for years. That segment has been in decline in recent years. Chris Hussey, an analyst for Goldman Sachs in New York, said the company’s moves into sound post production will help bolster Technicolor’s bottom line and could be a key to the company’s future. “This acquisition could prove very valuable as they get further into that segment,: Hussey said. The revenues of Technicolor, a unit of Thomson Corp. since March 2001, are not broken out from other Thomson units. In 2000, the last year its revenue was reported by its then owner, Carlton Communications PLC, Technicolor posted net income of $216.6 million on revenues of $1.52 billion. Different direction Technicolor’s acquisition of Pacifica Media comes three months after it announced it was abandoning plans to develop digital equipment for digital filmmaking. The decision came as the industry continues to haggle over developing a general format for digital film cameras and digital projectors. Among its new acquisitions, Echo Sound in particular has been one of the oldest and most active post-production studios in Hollywood, with hundreds of credits, including 2000’s “Tuskegee Airmen” and 1975’s “Raid on Entebbe.” David Weathers, president of Technicolor’s sound services unit, said the deal will give the company a greater market share and provide customers with more sound resources. Technicolor has also been expanding into the DVD market by ramping up its manufacturing capability from 384 million units in 2001 to 800 million last year. “It’s a market that’s rapidly expanding and continues to grow for us,” Beitcher said. The company’s push into postproduction began with the 2000 acquisitions of Montreal-based Covitec, a film lab and digital postproduction firm, and Hollywood-based film processing firm, Consolidated Film Industries. Color pioneer Technicolor was founded in 1915 by Herbert T. Kalmus, who invented the film process that led to the first color motion picture. The company had been solely a film manufacturer and film processor until 1981 when it began manufacturing videocassettes. The company is known for providing the first color feature film, 1937’s “Wings of the Morning,” and for MGM’s “Gone With the Wind,” in 1939, but also for providing color to the first animated feature film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in 1940. The company went on to perfect its color film process in the 1960s and 1970s but as competition in the market intensified, Technicolor entered the video duplication market in 1981

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