After five years of work, the city of Busan and the Busan Film Commission (BFC) are celebrating the opening of the 'AZ Works on the beach' post-production complex in Busan's newly developing Centum City.

AZ Works, which also has labs in Seoul and Beijing, is headed by CEOLee Yong Gi, a leading digital intermediate colorist who worked on a plethora of films such as Bong Joon-ho's The Host and Kim Jee-woon's The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

The company's new Busan branch is equipped to handle a full range of post-production work including CGI, VFX, digital color correction, Blu-ray authoring & mastering, IPTV conversion, hologram contents development and archival restoration.

The post-production services will be offered in tandem with BFC's locations services, studios and production support, taking Busan one step closer to its aim of becoming a one-stopAsian hub for the filmmaking industry.

Guests at the opening ceremony and facilities tour yesterday included Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) director Kim Dong-ho, filmmaker Park Chan-wook, who is already doing post at AZ Works on his upcoming vampire thriller Thirst; Ryoo Seung-wan (The City Of Violence) who is currently writing an action drama to be presented at the upcoming Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), and Ming Beaver Kwei, producer of the upcoming Korea-China co-production Sophie's Revenge (working title), starring Zhang Ziyi.

Veteran director Im Kwon-taek, noted in a congratulatory speech that 'there were eventimes in the past that Korean films failed to succeed abroad because of shoddy post-production work, and so it is encouraging to see such development these days.'

Today, BFC signed a memorandum-of-understanding (MOU) to create a 'Busan-South Gyeongsang Province shooting location cluster' of film commissions with cities in the area. The MOU aims to bring 60% or more of local film productions to shoot in the area by creating a network between regions, offering locations information and opening an integrated website.

BFC today also held a forum on 'Busan's media industry in the next 10 years', anticipating a new filmmaking industry order centered on Seoul (in the Northwest of South Korea) and Busan (in the Southeast), and discussing the needs to be met by the local government in such a case.

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