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Terrific and Thrilling at 30! Sony Pictures Imageworks celebrates three decades of stunning visual effects, genre-bending animation and innovative technologies.
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t’s hard to believe that the innovative, award-winning VFX studio we all know and admire as Sony Pictures Imageworks began its life as a small previs unit housed in the former TriStar building in Culver City. Celebrating three decades of creating state-of-the-art visual effects for features and producing animation for sister company Sony Pictures Animation, SPI continues to raise the bar with each project — whether it’s the revolutionary visuals of live-action movies like Men in Black or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness or the innovative animation of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs, the Machines and this year’s The Sea Beast. With over 1,200 employees in Los Angeles and Vancouver, the studio continues to push the visual envelope with one eye-popping feature after another. We asked some of the key creative forces at the studio to tell us about some of their favorite moments from their SPI careers and what they think makes the studio stand out in the VFX landscape today. Here is what they told us:
Michelle Grady
Executive Vice President, General Manager “My favorite memory is the day when Peter Ramsey, one of the directors on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, came to the studio with his Oscar and each and every one of our crew (from finance to FX, from PAs to Producers) got the opportunity to have their picture taken with it. It was so generous and just such a confirmation that it really does take a team to do what we do. What makes Imageworks standout is our ability to confidently and consistently deliver inspiring visuals in both CG Features and live-action VFX. Who else does that at the level of this team?”
Mandy Tankenson
Senior VP, Head of Production “My favorite times are the days we quickly launch into the projects, when we are bringing together the teams and starting the collaboration with our internal crew and the filmmakers. It’s this time of looking at artwork and thinking about all of the unique and innovative ways we can create something new and beautiful that invigorates me. Production in various stages are all fantastic, but I do love the beginning moments. Being a people person, getting to be together (in the same space or virtually) energizes me, and that time of embarking on a new journey reminds me of how lucky I am to work with such talented, smart and creative people. What makes Imageworks special is the people. I genuinely love what I do and a big reason for this is the crew we get to work with. Everyone is collaborating to make the best imagery and share their knowledge and ideas.”
Michael Ford
Chief Technology Officer “My favorite memories have always been the lights dimming in a theater to watch what our teams have been working on after a project is complete. There is something about seeing your colleagues’ hard work on screen that makes me think how lucky we are to get to do this. It also motivates me to keep pursuing new ways to improve it. What makes Imageworks stand out is the diversity of the work that we do each year. We have multiple VFX and animated feature films running at the same time, all with different looks and unique filmmaking challenges. I’ve always been thrilled with our ability to do a film like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and have a live-action Spider-Man film running on the same pipeline, at the same time. It is a testament to the mix of talented people and ground breaking technology that have made this place so successful over the last 30 years.”
Andrea Pace
Exec Director of Editorial, Production Services & Resources “My favorite memory from my years at Imageworks was when I was an overnight Production Services Technician (PST) on Big Fish. Victoria Alonso was the producer and she got Tim Burton’s autograph for me! Imageworks stands out because of all of the different looks we can produce in both animated and VFX projects.” www.animationmagazine.net 40
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august 22
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