In the latest VFX news, there is a great relief for ex employees of MPC, Vancouver.
Animation and VFX industry has seen a black day on 11th December, Wednesday, 2019. World leading Visual Effects Studio MPC (Moving Picture Company) shut down its Vancouver, Canada studio suddenly and left a huge number of VFX artists in misery. The immediate closure was shock to the entire creative arts industry and it took the internet by storm. It affected very badly the number of VFX jobs in Canada.
MPC Vancouver got shut down suddenly:
The reason given for such shutdown of MPC Vancouver studio is very diplomatic. As per the official announcement, it reads – “increasing external market pressures in Vancouver and more attractive opportunities in other locations.” This MPC closure is only applicable to its Vancouver based Animation and Visual Effects facility. Other world wide branches of Moving Picture Company (Toronto, Montreal, India, LA, Paris, Adelaide) are operating as it is.
On a practical note, such meltdown cannot be a sudden thing. It looks like unfortunate outcome of a snowball effect. Well, MPC Vancouver is not the only victim. Other countries are offering much more tax rebates and employer-centric business parameters. So, Vancouver based other Visual Effects studios had also given the pink slip to its production and post production artists, including ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), Method and Pixomondo. But, the number of employee firing was in less numbers, so it never got noticed.
The official mail of MPC Vancouver shutdown was posted online by unknown identity. It may or may not be authentic. The letter focuses on subject of ‘studio sustainability’. This issue was also discussed a lot on Reddit and Twitter. There are numerous discussion threads and tweets by so many ex artists of MPC and freelancers / artists of other studios.
If you are jobless or looking for job change, check out list of Animation and VFX Studios of Canada. It is first par of the series. The listing consists official website url of the post production studio, address, contact numbers, HR email id and Google Maps address.
DigiBC and Animation & Visual Effects Alliance of BC announced ‘Industry Hiring Fair’:
DigiBC (The Interactive & Digital Media Industry Association of British Columbia) and Animation & Visual Effects Alliance of BC came as life savior for all jobless artists from MPC.
Both the organizations are determined to help all the recently fired production and post production artists of MPC. In very short span of time, they had done mammoth work. They had lined up a huge number of Animation and Visual Effects Studios for ‘Industry Hiring Fair’. During it, team of HR and technical artists from participant studios will be available at venue for hiring ex artists of MPC. The job fair is open to other artists as well. Please bring your resume and demoreel / showreel.
The details of job fair are as follows.
Date: 17th December, Tuesday, 2019
Time: 2 to 5 pm
Venue: The Hangar @ Centre for Digital Media, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver
List of participating studios:
Till date, following list of Visual Effects and Animation Studios are participating in this job fair. The number can increase.
- DNEG
- ILM
- FuseFX
- Sony Pictures Imageworks
- Framestore Montreal
- Atomic Cartoons
- Animal Logic
- Blackbird Interactive
- Image Engine
- CVD VFX
- Method Studios
- Cinesite
- Scanline VFX
- SkyBox Labs
- Zoic Studios
- Atmosphere VFX
- Relic Entertainment
- Mainframe Studios
- WildBrain Studios
- ICON Creative Studio
- Digital Domain
- EA Vancouver
- Kabam
- Ziva Dynamics
If you are a studio representative and want to part of this Industry Hiring Fair, kindly mail to Sarah McNair.
Lisa Beare, B.C. Culture Minister, is confident to give employment to these artists in the same locality. To help this situation, she said, the Government will continue their tax rebate program for studios. They will do all possible help to maintain British Columbia as one of the preferred choices for the creative arts industry. It will help to increase number of VFX jobs in Canada.
About MPC Studio:
MPC Studio, owned by Technicolor, comes in the list of top 10 international Animation and VFX Studios. It has legacy of delivering top notch CGI, seamlessly blended with live action shooting plates. The studio covers wide gamut of 3D and Visual Effects services, which are in credentials of blockbuster Hollywood movies, multiple award winning web series (on various OTT platforms) and commercials. Some of its outstanding works include Dumbo, The Lion King, The Martian, The Jungle Book, Sully, Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade Runner 2049, Life of Pi, Harry Potter series, Pirates of The Caribbean series, Game of Thrones to name a few.
Some of the latest projects include Sonic the Hedgehog, Cats, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pokémon Detective Pikachu.