 Logo used since 2006 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | CGIvisual effects Motion pictures |
| Founded | May 26, 1992; 33 years ago (1992-05-26) |
| Headquarters | 200-1285 West Pender Street,Vancouver,British Columbia V6E 4B1, Canada 700 Rue Saint-Hubert, Suite 400,Montreal,Quebec HY2 0C1, Canada |
| Additional offices | 5750 Wilshire Boulevard,Los Angeles, California, United States |
Number of locations | 3 |
Key people | Michelle Grady (president) |
| Products | |
Number of employees | 1,300 (2024)[1] |
| Parent | Sony Pictures Entertainment |
| Website | imageworks.com |
Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. (also known asImageworks) is a Canadian-Americanvisual effects andcomputer animation studio headquartered inVancouver,British Columbia andMontreal,Quebec, with an additional office on theSony Pictures Studios lot inCulver City, California.[2] SPI is a unit ofSony Pictures Entertainment'sMotion Picture Group.[3][4]
The company has been recognized by theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences winning theAcademy Award for Best Visual Effects for their work onSpider-Man 2, as well as the Academy Award forBest Animated Film forInto the Spider-Verse andAcademy Award for Best Animated Short Film forThe ChubbChubbs!, having also received many other nominations for their work.
SPI has provided visual effects for many films; most recent includeThe Meg,Men in Black: International, andSpider-Man: Far From Home. They also provided services for several of directorRobert Zemeckis' films, includingContact,Cast Away,The Polar Express, andBeowulf.
Since the foundation of its sister companySony Pictures Animation in 2002, SPI would go on to animate nearly all of SPA's films, includingOpen Season,Surf's Up,Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and films in theCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,Smurfs andHotel Transylvania franchises, in addition to animating films for other studios such asArthur Christmas forAardman Animations (co-produced by SPA),Storks andSmallfoot for Warner Animation Group (now known asWarner Bros. Pictures Animation),The Angry Birds Movie forRovio Animation andits sequel (co-produced by SPA), andOver the Moon forNetflix andPearl Studio,The Sea Beast andIn Your Dreams forNetflix Animation, andThe Bad Guys 2 forDreamWorks Animation.
Sony Pictures Imageworks was formed in 1992 with five employees to use computers to help plan complicated scenes for live-action films.[5] Located in the formerTriStar building, their first work was aprevisualization for the 1993 filmStriking Distance.[6] In April 1993, the previously unnamed unit received its current name.[7] In 1997, SPI became part of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Digital Studios unit.[8]
To fill the gaps between VFX jobs, SPI decided to partake in the more profitable animation business.[9] Its first independent animated effort was the 5-minute shortThe ChubbChubbs! directed by Eric Armstrong. In 2002, it won theOscar forBest Animated Short.Early Bloomer, released in 2003, was the division's second short film and originally made as a storyboarding exercise.[10] SPI completed its first feature animation project in 2006 with the release ofOpen Season, which was produced by sister companySony Pictures Animation.
In 2007, SPI acquired Indian visual effects studio FrameFlow to take advantage of lower labor costs.[9][11] Renamed to Imageworks India, a modern facility was opened inChennai a year later.[citation needed] To leverage New Mexico's tax rebates and talent base,[12] a satellite production facility was opened in 2007 inAlbuquerque,[13] becoming the largest post-production operation in the state.[14] In 2010, SPI opened a production studio inVancouver,British Columbia, in order to take advantage of the local talent pool and government film production incentives.[15] Two years later, the studio doubled its Vancouver facilities.[16] At the same time, the Albuquerque studio was closed down due to declining state subsidies and difficulty with attracting artists to move there.[12]
In the beginning of 2014, as a cost-cutting move, SPI transferred a portion of its technology team fromits headquarters inCulver City to Vancouver.[9] By May 2014, entire headquarters and production had been moved to Vancouver, with only a small office remaining in Culver City.[17] At the same time, SPI closed down its Indian studio, laying off around 100 employees.[18] A year later, over 700 artists moved into a new 74,000-square feet headquarters in Vancouver.[19][20]
On October 6, 2023,Cartoon Brew reported thatDreamWorks Animation was moving away from producing films in-house at their Glendale campus to rely more heavily on outside studios after 2024, as part of a layoff by chief operating officer Randy Lake in a series of meetings the previous month. According to the report, SPI was named as the animation service for a then-unannounced DreamWorks sequel (The Bad Guys 2) scheduled for 2025. The film would use a "mixed production model", in which pre-production would be done in-house at DreamWorks along with approximately 50% of the asset build and one hour of production, while SPI would handle the other 50% of asset builds and 20 minutes of shot production.[21]
During 2009–2010, SPI made a transition from a traditional, emotional, multi-pass rendering system to a largely single-pass,global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing andphysically based shading techniques. They have achieved that withArnold Renderer, anunbiasedstochasticray tracer. Arnold, started in 1997 by Marcos Fajardo, was co-developed between 2004 and 2009 with SPI, where Marcos was employed, and a commercial branch is being developed by Marcos' Madrid-based companySolid Angle SL (now owned byAutodesk). Arnold was used on projects such asMonster House,Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,2012,Alice in Wonderland,The Smurfs andArthur Christmas.[22]
Sony Pictures Imageworks has provided visual effects and digital animation for the following films:[23]
In an article published byVulture in June 2023, several animators quitSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse due to unstable working conditions. According tothe Animation Guild, while Imageworks is associated with Sony Pictures Animation, Imageworks remains non-union.[26]
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