Platige Image

Platige Image
Industry Visual effects, CGI animation, Motion pictures, cinematography, video game cutscenes, animated movies
Founded
  • 1997 (1997)
Founder Jarosław Sawko, Piotr Sikora
Headquarters Warsaw, Poland
Divisions Platige Image LLC, NY USA
Website platige.com

Platige Image S.A. – Platige Image is a Polish company founded in 1997. It specializes in computer graphics, 3D animation, and digital special effects. Its core business includes advertising as well as film, art, and educational projects. The studio employs a staff of over 150 artists, including directors, art directors, graphic designers, and producers. Platige has received over 200 awards and honors, including four Best of Show awards at the SIGGRAPH festival and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. The studio was nominated for an Academy Award, the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival.[1]

Product divisions

Commercials

Platige has created over 2,500 commercials[2] and has worked with the largest advertising agencies in Poland and abroad, including BBDO, DDB Worldwide, Grey Global Group, Havas Worldwide, JWT, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, PZL, Publicis, and Young and Rubicam.

Since its foundation, the studio has worked on advertising projects intended for international markets. Commercials created by Platige have appeared in Great Britain, Russia, Portugal, and the United States, advertising a wide variety of brands, including LEGO, Kellogg Company, Discovery Channel, History (TV Channel), and Vodafone.

Platige was behind many popular Polish commercials, including the “Orange World” series, the ads for Tesco and the Biedronka discount supermarket chain, the ads featuring the Heart and Mind characters, as well as the ads for the Żubr beer brand.[3]

Animation

Platige Image won international recognition and acclaim for its animated shorts, including The Cathedral (2003), Fallen Art (2004), Ark (2007), The Kinematograph (2009), Paths of Hate (2010), and the cinematics The Witcher and its sequel. The Platige team was also involved in multiple unique projects, including City of Ruins,[4] the first ever stereoscopic reconstruction of a razed city, and the stereoscopic interpretation of Jan Matejko’s painting, Battle of Grunwald. In 2011, Platige created the “Move Your Imagination” campaign that promoted Poland at ITB Berlin, the largest international tourism trade fair.

Film

The studio was involved in VFX work for multiple Polish and international feature films, including Lars von Trier’s Melancholia(2011) and Antichrist (2009), Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing(2010), Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń (2007), and Rafał Wieczyński’s Popiełuszko. Wolność jest w nas. Currently, Platige is working on special effects for Łukasz Barczyk’s Hiszpanka.[5]

A subsidiary company, called Platige Films, was created to extend the feature film and TV production capacities of Platige Image. The first feature produced by the subsidiary will be called Another Day of Life.[6] The film, currently in pre-production, will be based on Ryszard Kapuściński’s book under the same name[7]

.[8]

History

Platige Image was founded by Jarosław Sawko and Piotr Sikora in Warsaw, in 1997. The two met in an MBA degree program and their trust in the development potential of the animation and post-production market led them establish their own company. They raised start-up capital by selling 300 studio lamps of their own design. The company debuted with VFX work for the music video for Justyna Steczkowska’s Niekochani (1997), which went on to win the Machiner award. The turning point for the studio came with their redesign of the visuals for TVP1, Poland state-owned television channel. Platige received the Golden Eagle award in 1999 for the redesign which paved its way into the world of advertising work.

Since its inception, Platige has been collaborating with the largest Polish and international advertising agencies, including BBDO, DDB, Gray, Havas Worldwide, JWT, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, PZL, Publicis, and Young and Rubicam. The steady increase of advertising jobs and commissions allowed Platige to expand its staff and operations.

The VFX work for Quo Vadis (2001) directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz was Platige’s first big film challenge. A special piece of software was created solely for the purpose of automatic cloning of characters that were to populate the Roman Colosseum depicted in the movie.

Simultaneously, Platige was involved in purely artistic pursuits. Tomek Bagiński’s The Cathedral, the first animated short produced by Platige was released in 2002. It was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Animated Short Film category a year later. The success of The Cathedral opened up the way for more original in-house productions and Platige released its next short, Marcin Waśko’s Undo, in that same year.

In 2004, Platige moved into its new headquarters at Racławicka 99 in Fort Mokotów, one of the forts comprising Fortress Warsaw, a ring of fortifications constructed in the 19th century.[9]

Two years after The Cathedral, Tomek Bagiński released Fallen Art. The short received the Jury Award at the SIGGRAPH festival and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award in the Best Short Animation category.

Ça Ira, an opera by Roger Waters, had its world premiere in Poznań in 2006. Platige was commissioned by the opera’s director, Janusz Józefowicz, to create the visuals for the performance. The resulting two-hour-long animation, composed of archival footage and animated sequences, was used as digital set design for the performance, accompanying the actors on stage.

In 2007, Platige released Ark, a short film directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys. The movie was shot using MILO Motion control, a system that combined realistic set designs with computer animation.[10] Ark was screened at multiple international movie festivals and received numerous awards and honors, including the Best of Show Award at the SIGGRAPH festival, and a Golden Palm nomination at the Cannes Film Festival.[11]

Another landmark event of 2007 that opened up new development avenues for Platige was the collaboration with CD Projekt RED, a video game development and publishing house. As a result of that collaboration, Tomek Bagiński directed Platige’s first video game cinematic for “The Witcher.” The cutscene was nominated for a Visual Effects Society award.

Also in 2007, Platige was once again involved in a theater production. The studio, in cooperation with the Warsaw-based Roma Theater, created digital stage designs for The Academy of Mr. Kleks.

Platige was subsequently commissioned to create digital set designs for “Seven Gates of Jerusalem,” a performance prepared for Krzysztof Penderecki’s 75th birthday. The animation was directed by Tomek Bagiński. The show was nominated for an Emmy Award.

In 2009, two major historical motion pictures were released, both containing VFX work by Platige Image: Rafał Wieczyński’s Popiełuszko: Wolność jest w nas and Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń. The latter was the first Polish movie with digital post-production done in 4K resolution technology – that is in nearly thirty times the resolution of typical television productions. Platige processed over 160 shots, totaling over 15 minutes of the entire movie.

Also in 2009, the Danish production house Zentropa commissioned Platige Image to do visual effects for Lars von Trier’s Antichrist.[12] The project resulted in a subsequent collaboration on the director’s next movie, Melancholia, which was later nominated for the Golden Palm at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Tomek Bagiński’s follow-up effort, The Kinematograph, was also released in 2009. The movie was the result of Bagiński’s collaboration with Jakub Jabłoński, an illustrator who designed the visuals and served as the film’s animation director. Inspired by Victorian fairy tales, Jabłoński used Mateusz Skutnik’s comic, “Revolutions 3. Monochrome,” as basis for his concept art for the movie.

In that same year, Platige produced its first commercial short that utilized stereoscopy, LECH Run. The experienced enabled the studio to get involved in 3D filmmaking and similar projects.

In 2010, the studio completed three important special projects that exhibited use of animation in service of both: art and education.

Platige was commissioned by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development to create animated movies that would promote Poland at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. One was called The Animated History of Poland and was directed by Tomek Bagiński, while the other, directed by Rafał Wojtunik, was called The Animated Guide to Polish Success.

For the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the studio created City of Ruins – the first ever digital stereoscopic reconstruction of a razed city. The film recreates the flight of a B-24 Liberator bomber over the ruins of Warsaw that took place in the spring of 1945.[13]

The National Museum in Warsaw commissioned the studio to create the first ever stereoscopic interpretation of Jan Matejko’s “Battle of Grunwald (painting)” for the battle’s 600th anniversary.

Commissioned by the National Culture Centre, Tomek Bagiński directed a series of ads called The Battle of the Sexcentenary for the campaign promoting the events commemorating the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald. Meanwhile, another director with a very clear and recognizable style, Damian Nenow, emerged from the Platige staff. His second short (after The Great Escape), the first he created at Platige, called Paths of Hate, received multiple awards at numerous international festivals, including the Best of Show award at SIGGRAPH, a Special Distinction at the Annecy IAFF and was nominated for a Visual Effects Society award.[14]

In 2011, Platige faced a whole new challenge: preparing a complex image campaign for the Polish Tourism Organization that would promote Poland at ITB Berlin, the largest tourism trade fair in the world. The campaign slogan: Move Your Imagination. The studio undertook a successful attempt to radically overhaul Poland’s image abroad using modern design and the possibilities offered by computer animation. The campaign featured a series of animated movies, the use of massive sculptures of the campaign characters in various public spots in Berlin and outdoor advertising, as well as an interactive stereoscopic show for the 5,000 people that participated in the opening ceremony of the trade fair.

The end of 2011 brought three more important events.

On December 14, 2011, Platige became a publicly traded company by entering the NewConnect stock market. On the day of its stock exchange debut, the price of Platige shares soared by 32.1%, leveling out at 21 PLN. A year later, the price of Platige shares (identified by the PLI symbol) has risen by another 76%.[15]

A design of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Polish History, developed jointly by Platige and the WWAA architecture design studio, has been selected as the winner of an international contest organized by the Museum authorities. Also in 2011, the studio established a working relationship with the Qatari government to produce “Dream 2030,” an animated short directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys and Rafał Wojtunik. It was Platige’s first production for the new market.

The year 2012 opened up new avenues for development. The company started a subsidiaries based in New York City – Platige Image, LLC and Platige Image, US, and in São Paulo, Platige established relations with Jarbas Agnelli, an acclaimed director from Brazil, and his agency, AD Studio.

Also in 2012, the studio produced the opening cinematic for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The animation received numerous awards and honors, including the prestigious Gold Award at the London International Awards. [16]

On December 18, 2012, on Qatar National Day, the studio released its biggest movie production yet. The film, called Hero and Message and produced for the Qatari government, is a 25-minute-long animation composed of over 500 shots that took 6 months to complete.

In January 2013, the studio released another cinematic, Cyberpunk 2077, a new title developed by CD Projekt RED.[17]

Capital Group

The Platige Image Capital Group consists of:[18]

1. mniam.tv Sp. z o.o., based in Warsaw.

Platige Image S.A. owns 62% of the company. mniam.tv specializes in cinematography for advertising and animation.

2. Juice Sp. z o.o., based in Wrocław.

Platige Image S.A. owns 51% of the company. Juice is a computer graphic design studio that also deals with 3D graphics.

3. Platige US, Inc., based in New York City.

Platige Image S.A. currently owns 100% of the company. Platige US, Inc. represents the interests of Platige Image S.A. in the United States.

4. Platige Image, LLC, based in New York City.

A subsidiary of Platige US, Inc. created to establish cooperation with Alanda, Ltd., a subsidiary of Fluid. Platige US, Inc. currently owns 70% of the company.

5. Platige Films Sp. z o.o., based in Warsaw.

Platige Image S.A. currently owns 100% of the company. Platige Films is involved in producing original movie projects and copyright management.

Key projects

Commercials

Date Brand/Title Agency
1998 Empik
2000 No to Frugo PZL
2003-2013 Żubr PZL
2005-2013 LEGO
2006 Galp balloons
2007 What a Channel
2007 Goplana GPD Advertising
2007-2012 Listerine JWT
2007-2013 Tesco PZL
2009 LECH Run
2010 Super Bock Dragon
2010-2013 Kellog’s Leo Burnett London
2011-2012 Kraina Orange Leo Burnett
2011-2012 CYFRA+ (Lemur) Change Integrated, Saatchi & Saatchi
2011-2013 Heart and Mind Publicis

Short animated films

Date Title Director
2002 The Cathedral Tomasz Bagiński
2003 Undo Marcin Waśko
2004 Fallen Art Tomasz Bagiński
2007 Ark Grzegorz Jonkajtys
2006 Moloch Marcin Pazera
2006 The Great Escape Damian Nenow
2008 Chick Michał Socha
2008 Teaching Infinity Jakub Jabłoński, Bartosz Kik
2009 The Kinematograph Tomasz Bagiński
2010 Paths of Hate Damian Nenow

Other animated productions

Date Title Director
2010 Polish Cinematography PISF Paweł Borowski
2011 National Forum of Music -
2011 DREAM 2030 Grzegorz Jonkajtys
2012 CATZILLA Jakub Jabłoński, Bartłomiej Kik
2012 Hero and Message Paweł Borowski

Film VFX

Date Title Director
2001 Quo Vadis Jerzy Kawalerowicz
2007 Katyń Andrzej Wajda
2009 ZERO Paweł Borowski
2009 General Nil Ryszard Bugajski
2009 Popiełuszko. Wolność jest w nas Rafał Wieczyński
2009 Antichrist Lars von Trier
2010 Essential Killing Jerzy Skolimowski
2011 Melancholia Lars von Trier
2012 Mission Afghanistan Maciej Dejczer
2013 Hiszpanka (work in progress) Łukasz Barczyk

Stage productions

Date Title Director
2006 Mr Kleks’ Academy Wojciech Kępczyński
2006 Ca Ira Janusz Józefowicz
2008 Seven Gates of Jerusalem Krzysztof Jasiński
2009 Remember. Katyń 1940. Konrad Smuga
2009 Tristan Krzysztof Pastor
2011 Move Your Imagination Tomasz Bagiński
2011 Polita Janusz Józefowicz

Cultural heritage productions

Date Title Director
2010 Animated History of Poland Tomasz Bagiński
2010 Animated Guide to Polish Success Rafał Wojtunik
2010 Jan Matejko’s Battle of Grunwald 3D Tomasz Bagiński
2010 The City of Ruins Damian Nenow
2011 Museum of Polish History Krzysztof Noworyta

Cinematics

Date Title Director
2007 The Witcher (intro and outro) Tomasz Bagiński
2008 The Witcher. Rise of the White Wolf Tomasz Bagiński
2011 The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Tomasz Bagiński
2013 Cyberpunk 2077 Tomasz Bagiński
2013 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Tomasz Bagiński

Awards

The Cathedral SIGGRAPH Best Animated Short 2002
The Cathedral animago AWARD Grand Prix 2002
The Cathedral 75th Academy Awards Nomination in the category: Short Film (Animated) 2003
Undo animago AWARD Best Animated Short 2003
Fallen Art animago AWARD 2nd place 2005
Fallen Art SIGGRAPH Jury Honors 2005
MOLOCH animago AWARD Professional/Animation Short Film 2006
Fallen Art BAFTA Best short animated film 2006
Ark SIGGRAPH Best of Show Award 2007
Ark Cannes Film Festival Nomination in the category: Short film 2007
The Witcher intro VES Awards Nomination in the category: Outstanding pre-rendered Visuals in a video game 2007
What a Channel animago AWARD Best Idea 2008
The Kinematographer animago AWARD Best Short Film 2009
Seven Gates of Jerusalem The International Emmy Awards Nomination in the category: Arts Programming 2009
Animated History of Poland animago AWARD Best Visualisation 2010
Paths of Hate VES Awards Nomination in the category: Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short 2011
The City of Ruins VES Awards Nomination in the category: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project 2011
Paths of Hate SIGGRAPH Jury Award 2011
Paths of Hate Comic-Con IIFF Jury Award 2011
Paths of Hate Comic-Con IIFF Best Animation 2011
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Golden Trailer Awards Best Video Game Trailer 2012
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings London International Awards Golden Statue in the category: TV/Cinema/Online Film - Production and Post Production; subcategory: Animation 2012

References

  1. ↑ http://www.behance.net/platigeimage
  2. ↑ http://notowania.pb.pl/instrument/PLPTGMG00013/platige
  3. ↑ http://platige.com/en/
  4. ↑ "City in Ruins official website". Warsaw Uprising Museum.
  5. ↑ Grynienko, Katarzyna (5 October 2012). "Prize-winning Polish Script Goes into Production". filmneweurope.com.
  6. ↑ "Another Day Of Life Official Website". Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  7. ↑ Subbotko, Donata (18 October 2012). "All views on Kapuściński". Gazeta Wyborcza.
  8. ↑ http://wyborcza.pl/piatekekstra/1,129242,12696590,Wszystkie_wymiary_Kapuscinskiego.html
  9. ↑ http://www.officefacility.pl/dzial-1,artykul-384,Urok_starego_fortu_Z_wizyta_w_siedzibie_Platige_Image.html
  10. ↑ http://motionographer.com/2008/10/09/grzegorz-jonkajtys-the-ark/
  11. ↑ http://twitchfilm.com/2008/09/full-animated-short-for-grzegorz-jonkajtys-the-ark-online.html
  12. ↑ http://wyborcza.pl/duzyformat/1,127291,6657368,Placisz_i_masz__Lars.html
  13. ↑ http://warszawa.gazeta.pl/warszawa/1,34889,8139802,Ruiny_stolicy_z_lotu_ptaka__Premiera_1_sierpnia.html
  14. ↑ "Six short films nominated for the Cartoon d'Or 2011". Filmneweurope.com. 15 July 2011.
  15. ↑ Relation from the debut http://gpwmedia.pl/entries/1518/
  16. ↑ "Platige Image wins Gold at the 27th Annual London International Awards" (Press release). London International Awards. 25 October 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  17. ↑ Review of the cinematic in Stash magazine http://www.stashmedia.tv/?p=15651
  18. ↑ http://inwestor.platige.com/spolka/
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