Heritage
The founders of Alive Studios began their work back in 1996, with interests in film-making, photography and graphic design.
As a result of working in the computer gaming industry, Steven developed a fascination with highly visual, computer-generated introductions – known to gamers as ‘intros’. This is where a game starts with an evocative movie scene to draw the player into the game and set the scene for what you’re about to immerse yourself in.
Similarly, this talent has been applied to the films we produce today for our customers, with creative introductions which play at the start of your film and create a fantastic build-up to watching your home movies.
The early 2000s
With the internet booming and the Apple Macintosh platform opening new doors, the team found themselves working on small film-making projects and graphic design work. Additionally, the internet invited new opportunities, but good Internet designers were hard to find, so Steven and Jennie decided to learn site-building skills.
This proved very successful, and for some years, they created impressive high-end websites for companies up and down the UK. Above all, one thing that always stood out was their ability to incorporate films into the websites. After that, the couple always seemed drawn back to film, and a chance request from a client led them down their current path.
One website client had a reel of an old 16mm cine film that he wanted to put on his website to share his company history with the world. The team were tasked with finding a suitable company to turn this old cine reel into a digital file suitable for hosting online. Following months of trying various companies in England resulted in very disappointing results – it turned out the industry was stuck in the dark ages of using a projector and filming the screen/mirror with a camcorder.
Never satisfied with mediocracy, the team believed they could do better themselves. And in conclusion, the next challenge was set – to design and build the most outstanding film scanning system in the world.
New cine film scanner
And so, the ‘Phoenix System’ launched in 2004, offering the first true frame-to-frame scan of 8mm film. Following this, the next three years saw the launch of the 16mm and 9.5mm models. Fifteen years later, and several revisions down the line, Alive Studios are known worldwide for their ability to provide incredible results from old cine film and have an envious list of clients.
As a result, the years have seen the old website building skills come into play, as the company runs this impressive website and has a robust back-end system to give customers round-the-clock access to their orders.
Furthermore, the dawn of High-Definition saw more innovation as Alive Studios were the first company to offer cine film in true HD to the UK. The results were so good that they abandoned all SD technology in 2012 to concentrate solely on HD and UHD (4K) in 2016.
The company is still headed up by the founders, Steven and Jennie Flowers. They work hands-on with the studio’s day-to-day running and continue to push the boundaries of film transfers, with big plans for the future.
Please see our ‘Vision’ page to see where it goes from here…
