MUMBAI: UTV's post-production and special effects division, USL-WOA has acquired a specialized post-production studio, STV.

Close on the heels of acquiring Western Outdoor Advertising (WOA) earlier this year, USL has signed the management and franchising agreement with STV, says UTV Allied Content COO Sandeep Bhargava. STV, says USL, has made investments close to Rs 250 million for two high end Domino machines, plus special effects and computer graphics as well as state-of-the-art reverse telecine facilities that will allow films shot on video to be mastered on 35mm and for the big screen.

USL-WOA, so far centralized at Worli in South Mumbai will now have suburban operations too, says a company release.

"We cater to the Ad Films, Television, Broadcasting and Film Industry. Expansion was a must and with STV, we have further consolidated our market share at the same time become closer to our 150 customers located just in Bombay" adds Bhargava.

UTV now plans to further strengthen USL- Delhi and open a full-fledged branch in Chennai where UTV's TV division is active in the Tamil space. Among the deals USL-WOA has recently closed are a Rs 40 million, three year deal for live coverage of horse races to be broadcast on Ten Sports and a Rs 30 million deal on creation of captive content for terminals for an on-line lottery company.

The company has also taken on multiple movie SFX projects, the big one being almost 22-minutes of SFX for their in-house co-produced forthcoming block buster - Lakshya, for which it has appointed two professionals from the UK and Germany to head the SFX and High End Telecine.