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Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is a Canadian
visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...
and
computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes ( still images) and dynamic images ( moving images), while computer animation re ...
studio headquartered in
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...
, with an additional office on the
Sony Pictures Studios The Sony Pictures Studios is an American television and film studio complex located in Culver City, California at 10202 West Washington Boulevard and bounded by Culver Boulevard (south), Washington Boulevard (north), Overland Avenue (west) and ...
lot in
Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
. SPI is a unit of
Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...
's Motion Picture Group. The company has been recognized by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion ...
with Oscars for their work on ''
Spider-Man 2 ''Spider-Man 2'' is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Michael Chabon. Based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name, it is the ...
'' and the
computer-animated Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refer ...
short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
'' The ChubbChubbs!'', and received many other nominations for their work. SPI has provided visual effects for many films; most recent include '' The Meg'', '' Men in Black: International'', and '' Spider-Man: Far From Home''. They also provided services for several of director
Robert Zemeckis Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy '' Romancing the Stone'' (1984), the science-fiction comedy '' Back to the Future'' film ...
' films, including ''
Contact Contact may refer to: Interaction Physical interaction * Contact (geology), a common geological feature * Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye * Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects * C ...
'', ''
Cast Away ''Cast Away'' is a 2000 American survival drama film directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and Nick Searcy. Hanks plays a FedEx troubleshooter stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in ...
'', '' The Polar Express'', and ''
Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. ...
''. Since the foundation of its sister company
Sony Pictures Animation Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by So ...
in 2002, SPI would go on to animate nearly all of SPA's films, including '' Open Season'', '' Surf's Up'', '' Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'', and films in the '' Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'', '' Smurfs'' and ''
Hotel Transylvania ''Hotel Transylvania'' is an American animated media franchise created by comedy writer Todd Durham and produced by Sony Pictures Animation. It consists of four feature films, three short films, a flash-animated TV series, and several video ...
'' franchises, in addition to animating films for other studios such as ''
Arthur Christmas ''Arthur Christmas'' is a 2011 computer-animated Christmas science fantasy comedy film directed by Sarah Smith and co-directed by Barry Cook. Featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, and As ...
'' for
Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and clay ani ...
(co-produced by SPA), ''
Storks Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family called Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons an ...
'' and '' Smallfoot'' for the
Warner Animation Group The Warner Animation Group (WAG) is an American animation studio serving as the computer-animated feature film label of Warner Bros.' theatrical film production and distribution division, Warner Bros. Pictures. Established on January 7, 2013, ...
, ''
The Angry Birds Movie ''The Angry Birds Movie'' (also known simply as ''Angry Birds'') is a 2016 computer-animated comedy film based on Rovio Entertainment's video game series of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures and Rovio Animation, and distributed by S ...
'' and its sequel for
Rovio Animation Rovio Animation, Ltd. is the animation division of Kaiken Entertainment after it was acquired from its original owner, Rovio Entertainment, in March 2017. It is led by former Rovio CEO Mikael Hed. Sony Pictures Television carries distribution for ...
, '' Over the Moon'' for
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
and Pearl Studio, and '' The Sea Beast'' for Netflix Animation.


History

Sony Pictures Imageworks was formed in 1992 with five employees to use computers to help plan complicated scenes for live-action films. Located in the former TriStar building, their first work was a
previsualization Previsualization (also known as previsualisation, previs, previz, pre-rendering, preview or wireframe windows) is the visualizing of scenes or sequences in a movie, prior to filming. It is also a concept in various creative practices, including a ...
for the 1993 film ''
Striking Distance ''Striking Distance'' is a 1993 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis as Pittsburgh Police homicide detective Thomas Hardy. The film co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Farina, and Tom Sizemore. It was directed by Rowdy Herrington ...
''. To fill the gaps between VFX jobs, SPI decided to partake in a more profitable animation business. Its first independent animated effort was the 5-minute short '' The ChubbChubbs!'' directed by Eric Armstrong. In 2002, it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. '' Early Bloomer'', released in 2003, was the division's second short film and originally made as a storyboarding exercise. SPI completed its first feature animation project in 2006 with the release of '' Open Season'', which was produced by sister company
Sony Pictures Animation Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by So ...
. In 2007, SPI acquired Indian visual effects studio FrameFlow to take advantage of lower labor costs. Renamed to Imageworks India, a modern facility was opened in
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
a year later. To leverage New Mexico's tax rebates and talent base, a satellite production facility was opened in 2007 in
Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding i ...
, becoming the largest post-production operation in the state. In 2010, SPI opened a production studio in
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...
, in order to take advantage of the local talent pool and government film production incentives. Two years later, the studio doubled its Vancouver facilities. At the same time, the Albuquerque studio was closed down due to declining New Mexico's subsidies and difficulty with attracting artist to move there. In the beginning of 2014, as part of Sony's cost-cutting move, SPI transferred a portion of its technology team from its headquarters in
Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
to Vancouver. By May 2014, entire headquarters and production had been moved to Vancouver, with only a small office remaining in Culver City. At the same time, SPI closed down its Indian studio, laying off around 100 employees. A year later, over 700 artists moved into a new 74,000-square feet headquarters in Vancouver.


Technology

During 2009-2010, SPI made transition from traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely singlepass,
global illumination Global illumination (GI), or indirect illumination, is a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light that comes directly from ...
system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. They have achieved that with '' Arnold Renderer'', an unbiased
stochastic Stochastic (, ) refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselv ...
ray tracer In 3D computer graphics, ray tracing is a technique for modeling light transport for use in a wide variety of rendering algorithms for generating digital images. On a spectrum of computational cost and visual fidelity, ray tracing-based ren ...
. 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 company ''Solid Angle SL'' (now owned by
Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...
). Arnold was used on projects such as '' Monster House'', '' Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'', ''
2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
'', ''
Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...
'', ''
The Smurfs ''The Smurfs'' (french: Les Schtroumpfs; nl, De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, humanoid creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. ''The Smurfs'' was first created and in ...
'', ''
Arthur Christmas ''Arthur Christmas'' is a 2011 computer-animated Christmas science fantasy comedy film directed by Sarah Smith and co-directed by Barry Cook. Featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, and As ...
'' and is being used on all upcoming SPI's films.


Filmography

Sony Pictures Imageworks has provided visual effects and digital animation for the following films:


Upcoming


Television

* '' The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest'' ("The Edge of Yesterday") * '' Stuart Little the Animated Series'' * '' Love, Death & Robots'' ("Lucky 13") and ("In Vaulted Halls Entombed") * ''
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ''The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'' is an American television miniseries created by Malcolm Spellman for the streaming service Disney+, based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Sam Wilson / Falcon and Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier. ...
'' ("
One World, One People "One World, One People" is the sixth episode and series finale of the American television miniseries '' The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'', based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Sam Wilson / Falcon and Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldie ...
") * '' Hawkeye'' (2 episodes) * ''
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special ''The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special'' is an American television special written and directed by James Gunn for the streaming service Disney+, based on Marvel Comics featuring the superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy. It is the sec ...
'' (TV special)


See also

*
Sony Pictures Animation Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by So ...
* Animal Logic *
Pacific Data Images Pacific Data Images (PDI) was an American computer animation production company based in Redwood City, California, that was bought by DreamWorks SKG in 2000. It was renamed PDI/DreamWorks and was owned by DreamWorks Animation. Founded in 1980 ...
*
Digital Domain Digital Domain is an American visual effects and digital production company based in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. The company is known for creating digital imagery for feature films, advertising and games from its locations in Californ ...
* DNEG *
Framestore Framestore is a British animation, visual effects company and creative studio based on Chancery Lane in London. Formed in 1986, it acquired (and subsequently merged with) the Computer Film Company in 1997. It works on feature films and telev ...
*
Blue Sky Studios Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded on February 22, 1987 by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their e ...
*
Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pr ...
*
Rhythm & Hues Rhythm & Hues Studios was an American visual effects and animation company, that received the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1995 for ''Babe (film), Babe'', in 2008 for ''The Golden Compass (film), The Golden Compass'', and in 2013 for ...
*
Wētā FX Wētā FX, formerly known as Weta Digital, is a New Zealand digital visual effects company based in Miramar, Wellington. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for ' ...
*
Wētā Workshop Wētā Workshop is a special effects and prop company based in Miramar, Wellington, in New Zealand, that produces effects for television and film. The company is the mascot named after the New Zealand wētā, one of the world's largest insect ...
* Moving Picture Company (MPC) * Nitrogen Studios * Image Engine


References


External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Culver City, California Companies based in Vancouver American animation studios Mass media companies established in 1992 Canadian animation studios Computer animation Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony subsidiaries Visual effects companies Best Visual Effects Academy Award winners