Former Deluxe exec takes Cinelabs International role

Bull, who left Deluxe five months ago, will take on the role of CTO and partner at the film processing firm from next week.

“People in film and TV want to carry on working with film, but everyone on the services side seems to be abandoning it,” said Bull.

“Cinelabs is committed to supporting its film clients while there continues to be demand.

“There are challenges on the broadcast side, but film is still suitable as an acquisition format for HD content. I’d be reluctant to suggest we can turn around the anti-film attitude of broadcasters in the UK but we can help independents who support the format.”

Bull said that as well as acquiring content on film there were opportunities for distribution, particularly in Eastern Europe and developing countries that have not adopted digital distribution at the same rate as some Western territories.

Last month, Cinelabs International completed the acquisition of London-based Bucks Media Services, (BMS) which will now be rebranded Cinelab London.

Through its operations in the UK, Romania and Greece the company offers negative processing, printing and developing and Bull has been tasked with expanding the business by leading the company’s efforts to develop an outsourcing strategy that could result in “labour intensive” digital work such as metadata creation, VFX, remastering and content prep QC completed at the company’s Romanian base.

The company is also expected to launch an HD dailies service and an onlocation digital dailies service.

Bull was director of engineering at Ascent Media for seven years before joining Technicolor Network Service. In 2007, he re-joined Ascent, which was later acquired by Deluxe.