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February 2015

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www.postmagazine.com 37 POST FEBRUARY 2015 our growth," says Lake. The decision to relocate Imageworks' headquarters to Vancouver occurred when "we reached a tipping point and realized we could support all the departments," he says. "The marketplace had changed, more and more talent came to Vancouver, and cli- ents looked to us to bring down prices by working in tax-advantageous locations." The new space, which is expected to open offi cially on April 1, will occupy 74,000-square-feet in the Pacifi c Centre. "We will maintain ancillary space a block away for at least the calendar year," notes Lake. "We'll have roughly 700 peo- ple in our headquarters and expect to add another 300 by the end of year. We have quite an aggressive timetable." The Vancouver move doesn't eliminate the company's Culver City offi ce. "We will continue to have a presence in Culver City to interact directly with clients," says Lake. "Artists will be able to work seamlessly with Vancouver. What's diff er- ent about our approach is that we tend to run all projects as location-agnostic. Supervisors in Vancouver may oversee artists in Culver City. It doesn't matter to the tech pipeline where the artists are." Even though Vancouver is a big TV town, Imageworks "intends to stay in the feature domain," he says. Productions un- derway as the company relocates include Alice in Wonderland: Through the Look- ing Glass for Disney, the animated Hotel Transylvania 2, an untitled fully-animated Smurfs feature for Sony Pictures Ani- mation, the Angry Birds animated movie for Rovio, an Adam Sandler live-action sci-fi comedy called Pixels for Columbia Pictures, and an upcoming animated Warner Bros. feature. FUSEFX OPENS IN VANCOUVER "We are well-established in Burbank, and Vancouver was a place we wanted to open an offi ce. Our work on the new A&E series The Returned, which shoots in Vancouver, was a good motivating factor," says Jacobsen. FuseFX has a staff of nearly 100 artists, supervisors and producers in Burbank, where it provides VFX for over 26 TV shows and several features. It opened full-service branches in New York's Soho and Vancouver's Yaletown in November. The Vancouver offi ce, 2,300-square-feet of loft space, can ac- commodate 20 or more artists. "Every- thing there will be the same as we off er in Burbank," Jacobsen says, with full 2D and 3D departments, and an on-prem- ises data center. "All the offi ces are able to support each other on projects." The Vancouver facility is fi nishing The Returned and continuing work on Fox's new Backstrom, says Jacobsen. "We're also working on the second season of Salem for WGN America, which shoots in Shreveport, Bates Motel for A&E, and the pilot Mad Dogs for Amazon." FuseFX's expansion to Vancouver net- ted it some shots for the fi nal season of Falling Skies. "Although we have good relationships with the people at TNT and the VFX supervisor of Falling Skies, shots really couldn't come to us in LA because tax incentives were required," Jacobsen explains. OLLIN FX CONSIDERS EXPANSION Charlie Iturriaga recalls hiring from Vancouver to staff Ollin FX's Mexico City headquarters 10 years ago. Although VFX is "a worldwide business" that's "territo- rially non-specifi c" thanks to the ease of remote connectivity, there are still issues of "security, bandwidth and networking" to consider when expanding. So, for now, Ollin FX has hired several artists in Vancouver for the short term. "We're running a couple of shots for House of Cards through them," says Itur- riaga. "House of Cards is 6K, so it's been really interesting to see how to run 6K across three locations" — Vancouver, LA and Mexico City." The company experi- mented with transferring shots for season two of House of Cards, in 5K at the time, through artists in Barcelona. But that process proved to be "much slower than doing it all in a single facility," he reports. Ollin FX's Vancouver artists are also doing some shots for the sci-fi feature Chappie, which did some production in Vancouver; its director, Neill Blomkamp, resides in town. Iturriaga believes there's certainly enough work in Vancouver to support a potential expansion by Ollin FX. "VFX is one of the main tools of fi lmmakers today, whether they're doing small fi lms or tentpole movies. They need a lot of people and infrastructure, so we expect Vancouver to grow and grow." VANCOUVER FEATURE Working on A&E's The Returned, shot in Vancouver, helped motivate FuseFX to open an offi ce in the city, says Tim Jacobsen (right). Ollin FX's Charlie Iturriaga (right) is considering expanding to Vancouver. Right now they rely on a few regional artists for Netfl ix's House of Cards.

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