HP Powers Action-Packed Film "Act of Valor"

When the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a deadly terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of SEALs is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt. As the valiant men of Bandito Platoon race to stop a coordinated attack that could kill and wound thousands of American civilians, they must balance their commitment to country, team and their families back home.

'Act of Valor' uses active duty U.S. Navy Seals as actors. The characters they play are fictional, but the weapons and tactics used are real.

Bandito Brothers Choose HP Workstations and HP DreamColor Displays to Develop First Feature Film

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire -02/24/12)- HP (NYSE: HPQ - News) -- In theaters today, "Act of Valor," the first feature film from the media company Bandito Brothers, harnesses the power of HP Workstations and HP DreamColor displays to develop an extraordinary composite of real-life heroism and innovative filmmaking.

The film stars a group of active-duty U.S. Navy SEALs in a fictionalized account of Navy SEAL operations. It takes audiences on a mission to recover a kidnapped CIA operative that unexpectedly results in the discovery of an imminent, terrifying global threat. The filming of "Act of Valor" took place on 48 days over 12.5 months and was shot in 12 states and five countries on four continents in harsh and technology-deficient environments.

"We have a reputation for working with virtually any format and giving it the best look it can possibly have," said Jacob Rosenberg, chief technology officer, Bandito Brothers. "To make a film like 'Act of Valor' we had to develop innovative solutions and push our technology to the limit -- HP was right there with us."

HP tech behind the scenes
An independent film studio, Bandito Brothers keeps a close eye on overhead costs. HP technology combines uncompromised speed and quality with cost efficiency. The small crew developed innovative uses of technology to capture the striking combat sequences, up-to-the-minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for an ultimate action adventure film that showcases the skills, training and tenacity of the Navy SEALs.

Bandito Brothers stands at the forefront of the Digital SLR filmmaking revolution. Its filmmakers often shoot with Canon 5D Mark II Digital SLR cameras and use HP DreamColor displays to immediately review footage and ensure color accuracy on location. Video that once took filmmakers several weeks to shoot can be captured by Bandito Brothers in a single day.

For the shoot of "Act of Valor," Bandito Brothers set up a trailer with HP EliteBook Mobile Workstations that backed up captured footage to hard drives as soon as it came off the camera. While on location, Bandito Brothers also used HP DreamColor displays to immediately review their work.

In post-production, since desktop tools like Adobe® Production Premium and Cinnafilm are optimized to work seamlessly on HP Workstations, Bandito Brothers relies on HP Z800 Workstations equipped with Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 graphics cards that enhance software performance.

In total, Bandito Brothers captured roughly 200 hours of raw 5-D footage (4 terabytes of data) and 20-30 hours of film footage that was rendered, edited and processed on HP Workstations.

"In the past, the render processing to make footage film ready took an hour per minute of content, so 50 hours of source material would take 3,000 hours to render," said Mike McCarthy, director, Technology, Bandito Brothers. "With the HP Z800 Workstations the process was twice as fast, allowing us to complete the render process on four systems in about one month."

Additional information about HP Workstations is available at www.hp.com/zworkstations.

About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world's largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.