Romania has a lot to offer filmmakers. Francis Ford Coppola, Anthony Minghella, Franco Zeffirelli, Costa-Gavras, Paul Schrader and Joel Schumacher are only some of the internationally famous directors that made some of their most recent films here. They came for a good reason – because of our beautiful and varied locations, experienced crews and production facilities.
• Unspoiled natural locations
• Experienced crews and production facilities
• Low construction and labor costs
• Reliable workforce
• Big studios with full-time English-speaking employees
• Romania has signed the EU co-production treaty which allows EU co-productions
EQUIPMENT
Castel Film offers 8 modern sound stages on a 9,590 sq m (104,352 sq ft) back lot. Stage 5 is one of the largest sound stages in continental Europe, over 3,354 square meters (over 36,100 sq feet). They also provide production offices, gated parking, make-up rooms, dressing rooms, wardrobe rooms, storage facilities, and a fullservice catering area.
MediaPro Studios is the largest production facility in the country, able to provide full production and post-production services. The Studio has 19 sound stages, including the largest in Romania and Continental Europe with 4,200 sq m (over 45,200 sq ft), 4 indoor water tanks, a 100 acre back lot with various standing sets, fully equipped production offices, make-up and dressing rooms, conference rooms, and a 35mm screening room.
All standard camera equipment can be rented in Romania.
Starting with 2005 MediaPro Studios is Panavision/ Panalux official representative in Romania.
The studios’ Equipment Department is mainly equipped with 35 mm and High Definition cameras – ARRI FLEX 535 B, ARRI FLEX 435 ES, ARRI - FLEX 35III , ARRI FLEX 35 BL IV, MO VIECAM SUPER AM ERI CA, SON Y CIN EALTA HDW-F-900R, SON Y CIN EALTA HDV PDW-F350L – completed with all range of lenses and filters, heads and tripods for both film and advertising productions. Also, an extensive inventory of hardware is available: Steadicam Master Film System; Panther Foxy Carne, Panther Dolly, Super JIB II , mini JIB, Western Dolly, Panther Light Dolly, Kinetic Support vehicle camera mount, Movie Tech Sprinter2 Kit, P+S Tehnik Mini Skater, SuperVario Tracks, Precision Vario Tracksand and lighting package as well as location sound services.
Panalight Romania can provide also an important and modern selection of equipment for cinema, specialized technical assistance and excellent services. They are also located in Rome, Milan and inside the Cinecitta’ Studios. Castel Film offers ARRI 535 and 435, Moviecam Compact, Moviecam Super America, Mitchell/ Fries packages.
Local technicians use modern lighting equipment packages such as: ARRI Sun HMI s, flickerfree HMI s, a full range of incandescent lights, such as Mole- Richardson and DeSisti tungsten lights, and silent generators featuring crystal lock.
Among the grip equipment used here, we can mention dolly packages like the SUPER PANT HER EVOL UTION with its super jib arm 2 and U-bangi arm; the SUPER PANT HER III with jib arm 2; the MATA DOR cart; and the VIP CRAN E with a maximum height of 9 meters. Location sound departments provide services for stage and outdoor shooting, and complete post-production services. The most common sound recording equipment here are the time-code FOSTEX DAT , the Nagra 4-S, and the 12-channel COOP ER mixers. A wide range of boom and wireless microphones are available so that all productions meet the required international standards. MediaPro Studios offers a complete range of SFX services through its Special Effects workshop. Thanks to the partnership with Effects Associates, London, the Studios have the largest inventory of special effects equipment available in Romania and Eastern Europe, as well as a highly skilled team of young professionals. Alongside Nick Allder’s (Academy Award winner) expertise, the Romanian team provides the best SFX services in the Region.
The facilities of Abis Studio include a package of state of art post production technology, all the services handled by a fully qualified team of top experienced professionals: Editing – 4 editing workstations, Telecine / Color grading (Spirit Datacine, a very flexible machine that can be used for almost any application in modern postproduction facility, Visual effects (the visual effects department can handle complex compositing with two Flame 2K systems, Shake, After Effects or 3D computer animation), 3D animation, Sound mixing, 2K scanning (you have the possibility to have your film material scanned on the ARRISCAN for later digital post production. ARRISCAN is suited for almost any scanning application including Digital Intermediate, visual effects, restoration and archival.), 2K recording (they offer film recording on the ARRILA SER, transforming your finished digital data back to the analogue level. ARRI – LA SER Film Recorder bridges the gap between digital film production and analog film projection.) and high definition projection. Providing all the services in one place gives their customers the most efficient solution, great flexibility and control over the whole production and postproduction process. Personnel Cinematographers, set and costume designers, key technicians, animators, puppeteers, stunt performers, production and location managers continue to develop their experience with the increasing volume of international productions shot in Romania. Many are on the regular staff of the two major studios, Castel Film and MediaPro Studios, and there are many good freelance crew people also on the market. During the last years, teams of experienced electrical and grip personnel set up their own companies, and are now offering their services to the interested producers.
CASTING
Local casting agencies maintain exhaustive photo files for principal talent and extras. Romania can offer experienced English, French, German and Italian speaking actors. Among our internationallyrecognized stars are such familiar faces as Marcel Iures (with main roles in THE PEACEMA KER and HART ’S WAR ),Maia Morgenstern (in ULYSSES’ GAZE and THE PA SSION OF THE CHRI ST) and Oana Pellea (CHIL DREN OF MEN, I REALL Y HAT E MY JOB).
CDF Casting Services and EXIT FILM S have in their portfolio professional actors as well as amateurs, and lots of choices of extras for feature films or commercials.
Larger studios (Castel Film or MediaPro Studios) have their own in-house casting departments.
COSTUMES
Romania has one of the biggest textile industries in Europe. Working at the highest standards, local teams of costume designers and seamstresses can make the best costumes to order. From military to civilian, men and women, ancient to contemporary, you can find here a vast collection of costumes with a complete assortment of accessories: wigs, bonnets, belts, hoods, handbags, fur adornments, boots, bowlers, umbrellas or walking sticks. Low labor costs allow artists to fully explore their passion and most foreign designers who have worked here had the time of their lives.
POST - PRODUCTION
Romania offers post-production services and fully integrated facilities, allowing further cost control for producers. Most of the studios offer complete editing, transfer, titles and CGI effects. The largest CGI facility in Romania is located at MediaPro Studios, where the latest technology in terms of Computer Generated Imagery is operated by highly trained personnel. The facility includes: 30 graphics workstations, an ultra-fast fiber optic network to serve large graphics files, 160-terabyte servers, a “render farm” – the latest Blade enclosure from HP with 32 8-core processor blades installed. Modern post-production equipment is available, as the latest AVID line hardware and software, full blown Final Cut systems and ProTools suites, Discreet FLAM E suites, FLINT suites, 3D animation and modeling suites. ABIS STUDIO also offers SPIRIT transfer system.