VFX veteran takes the reins from current creative director and two-time Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Paul Franklin, who will continue providing visual effects consulting to the company on features as well as develop and direct new projects.
The VFX and animation studio settles into its new Manhattan Beach digs, offering small shop creative/budgetary advantages with the underlying muscle of extensive European roots; The Mill alumni Aurelien Simon and Gawain Liddiard will head new office.
The Pixar co-founder and former Walt Disney Animation Studios president will serve alongside Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and PDI co-founder Glenn Entis.
New hires at the multiple Emmy Award-winning studio include Oscar nominee Erick Oh and Jony Chandra as directors, Brian Tinsman and Michael McCormick as games creative directors, and Hayley Porter as director of marketing.
Former BOT VFX exec will lead studio’s creative, production, and sales teams while setting strategic direction; plans include increasing company profile and recruiting high-level creative and production talent.
Special panel guests, writers/directors Dan Ojari and Mikey Please, executive producer Sarah Cox, and studio co-founder and creative director Peter Lord, will discuss their upcoming Netflix stop-motion musical special, starring Gillian Anderson, Richard E Grant, Bronte Carmichael and Adeel Akhtar, debuting November 24.
Coming May 14, the free, online conversation with the film’s key talent, including writer/director Mike Rianda and writer/co-director Jeff Rowe, is being produced in cooperation with OGR, Sony Pictures Animation, and Netflix.
Insanity and psychopathic science are on the docket at The Paley Center for Media’s 8th annual TV festival; talent behind Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s hugely popular Adult Swim animated series scheduled for October 27; event kicks off October 23.
