DARAH HANSEN | VANCOUVER SUN | APRIL 3, 2012 | Original Article
Vancouver-based visual effects studio Image Engine announced Monday it has expanded its operations to the Centre for Digital Media on the Great Northern Way Campus, creating 30 entry-level industry jobs in response to the demand for creative talent in the region.
Vancouver is a growing destination for visual effects work out of Hollywood, said Jason Dowdeswell, Image Engine's head of studio.
PAUL HELLARD | CG SOCIETY | FEBRUARY 20, 2012 | Original Article
Universal Pictures’ Safe House is the story of a young CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds) who is looking after a fugitive (Denzel Washington) in what is called a safe house. For complex story reasons the house is attacked, and the agent is forced to escape with his charge, pursued by unknown assailants. Action ensues, (read: guns, cars and heavily graded tension) and the need for a great deal of invisible effects is paramount.
For the 371 shots required from Image-Engine, the sole VFX vendor for the production, Simon Hughes, Image Engine Visual Effects Supervisor helmed the project, alongside Steve Garrad, Visual Effects Executive Producer and Geoff Anderson, Visual Effects Producer. They worked closely with director Daniel Espinosa, Richard Pearson, editor of The Bourne Supremacy and Iron Man 2, VFX editor Kevin Hickman and Universal Pictures personnel. The most challenging invisible effects in Safe House was having to fill Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town with a couple of crowd shots.
The crew spent many full days shooting the plates of crowds and field action and many other elements that would be patched together later, bringing together the active background. But the sequence itself wasn’t about the football or the football stadium. “It was very much just background filling where the CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds) is having a meeting, which happens to be in this football stadium, during a game,” explains Steve Garrad.
VARIETY | FEBRUARY 18, 2012 | Original Article
Top Houses Choose RenderCloud to Cut Costs
With their data storage costs on the rise as visual effects companies render more and more work, vfx and animation houses are finding a silver lining in a shared cloud.
In Vancouver, where many vfx and animation houses have set up shop to service the region's growing film and TV production business, three of the city's top shops -- Rainmaker, Digital Domain, and Image Engine -- among the converts that are switching over to a cloud-based media storage and rendering system, eliminating the need for each of them to maintain a costly inhouse system of their own.
The facilities were all facing the same issue, says Image Engine head Jason Dowdeswell. Each time they tackled large-scale projects they were forced to purchase more storage and rendering capability. However, once a show was done, there was no way to scale back down.
So the studios -- partners in the Vancouver Studio Group, a 16-member association formed in 2009 to identify production efficiencies -- looked into a way to share rendering computers. After entertaining various proposals, they decided to go with RenderCloud, from Toronto-based technology firm Scalar Decisions, and set to launch Feb. 15.
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Vancouver, BC. February 13, 2012. Image Engine today announced that the Company has created over 370 photoreal visual effects shots for Safe House (Universal Pictures, 2012).
The company worked with Director Daniel Espinosa (Snabba Cash), Editor Richard Pearson (The Bourne Supremacy, Iron Man 2), and Universal Pictures, as the sole VFX vendor for the production.
Image Engine was tasked with designing all of the show’s visual effects, making recommendations from the script and initial edit to enhance the narrative story-points and dial up the action. “For a visual effects studio, being involved with the initial narrative process is key to doing a great job,” said Steve Garrad, Visual Effects Executive Producer, “Universal gave us the creative freedom and responsibility to really enhance what is a top-notch action-packed thriller.”
Read more: Image Engine Deliver Invisible Effects for Universal Pictures’ Safe House
