At a time when the footprint of the visual effects business continues to shrink in Los Angeles, Origin Digital Studios launched last March in Burbank with a conservative business model.
Miami-based Lincoln Road Advisors, headed by Eric J. Bertrand, is the primary investor in the company. Its president is Mark Miller an industry vet who is an alum of companies including Pixomondo, Eden FX and the former Digital Magic.
Origin — currently a team of roughly 15 artists — works at space that it rents from Burbank-based post house Fotokem, and has a partnership through which the two businesses bid together on VFX and postproduction.
Origin is additionally available at Fotokem’s New York office, where customers can take advantage of production incentives. Also to be available for work involving incentives, it has set up a very small base in Albuquerque, NM, and also plans to open space in Atlanta. “We can expand or contract based on rebates,” Miller told The Hollywood Reporter.
Of the the relationship with Fotokem, Miller explained that it “instantly allows us the ability to connect to their high speed networks which cross the country. With their nextLAB and Global Data technology, our clients can get plates to us simply and quickly, no matter where they are based. Our studio in New York is fiber connected to Fotokem’s network, to ease the transport of information to our Burbank location. The same will hold true for each of our future studio locations.”
Since opening, the company handled VFX on two Fox pilots, Hieroglyph and Babylon Fields. It’s currently working on a portion of the VFX for the second season of Sleepy Hollow in Burbank and New York.
E-mail: Carolyn.Giardina@THR.com
Twitter: @CGinLA
