Imagineer Systems announced today that leading Detroit, MI. facility group, Grace & Wild, has purchased multiple licenses of its innovative visual effects tools mokey and monet. Four mokey and four monet licenses will be spread across the group, with two of each installed in both the Southfield-based Postique and the Farminton Hills-based hdstudios.

"The efficiency of those two applications is way beyond anything that the major non-linear manufacturers have accomplished to date," says Paul DeMars, General Manager of hdstudios. "mokey and monet provide us with opportunities to come up with new visual ideas for our clients that would not be simple processes on our existing equipment. Myself and my operators are very excited about that."

Unsurprisingly given their Detroit location, Postique and hdstudios spend most of their time working on spots for the US automobile industry. Recent spots include those for Mazda, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Lincoln and Cadillac, while other high-profile clients include Minute Maid and Six Flags.

Indeed it was during a demo visit at hdstudios earlier this year that Imagineer Systems clinched the sale with some impromptu work on a tricky automotive project. A spot featuring a Lincoln Navigator offered a very demanding compositing challenge, which required making the scene appear as though it were shot in-camera. The project was a perfect opportunity to show what mokey and monet were capable of and Imagineer MD, Allan Jaenicke, duly obliged.

"It's one thing to see a demo, to see a tool applied to a true life project and see how it works is another one entirely and very impressive," says DeMars. "We started about 5.30pm and we were done by 8.00pm. We could have done it faster too. On other systems I'm not sure it could have been accomplished anywhere near as well."