Among SPDP's plans is to ramp up production at Sony Pictures Animation. Osher recognizes the legacy of character and creature animation that has distinguished its business, going back to Stuart Little. © Columbia Pictures.

Sony Pictures Digital Prods. (SPDP) was formed last March and comprises Sony Pictures Imageworks, the Oscar-winning vfx and character animation studio, its full service interactive creative group, Imageworks Interactive, and Sony Pictures Animation. Six months ago, Bob Osher was named president of the division, and provides both creative and business leadership, while he continues to serve as COO of Columbia Pictures. He was joined by Hannah Minghella, who was appointed president of production for Sony Pictures Animation after three years as creative director for Sony Pictures co-chair, Amy Pascal. Meanwhile, Tim Sarnoff remains president of Imageworks (including Imageworks Interactive). Marking the six-month juncture since the formation of the new digital production division and their arrival, VFXWorld spoke exclusively with both Osher and Minghella about their initial plans, goals and future roadmap.

Bill Desowitz: Let's begin with Imageworks. What is your perspective?

Bob Osher: Imageworks is first and foremost a creative endeavor, where we consistently push the boundaries to imaginatively deliver visual effects and animation in new and exciting ways.

When I first got here [in March], I encouraged a series of internal meetings with our producers, visual effects supervisors, animation supervisors, senior managers -- basically the team leaders. The meetings really fostered a situation where they could talk about what we should be doing, what they thought our focus should be, what our goals are and how we could reach them. It really gave the artists who are here working hard every single day a voice in our business. It was so remarkable to see how interested they were to be asked. They definitely had points of view and it was a great, vigorous discussion. To help achieve our creative goals, the need to make some structural changes became clear. We focused on three main things: enhancing client services, improving our internal efficiencies and simplifying management so that employees and senior managers are much closer.

As with any company you continuously look at the organization of your management and consider if it is the most efficient way to service your artistic goals, your client's needs and business realities. Also, with Sony Pictures Animation ramping up production, we talked about Imageworks' extensive experience and recognized the importance and the opportunity in emphasizing the character and creature animation that has distinguished its business, going all the way back to Stuart Little. We wanted to make sure that the way our management structure is organized reflects and supports what we expect our business to be in the coming years.

So we concentrated much of our effort in not only optimizing our organization but also empowering some of those folks who were in that room: not just senior managers, mind you, but our senior artists and technology supervisors, along with their co-workers and teams, to give them more responsibility and a real continued vested interest in the success of the facility.

Bob Osher and Hannah Minghella.

BD: As an example, Ken Ralston and Rob Bredow will now have more responsibilities.

BO: Ken has been here almost from the very beginning. He came to Imageworks with a vision to form a community of artists with a passion for great filmmaking. Now he will not only be able to lend his wisdom and insights on his projects [he's currently senior visual effects supervisor on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which will employ an array of techniques, including performance capture, 3D animation, virtual environments and live action] but also on other projects as he takes on the mantle of creative leadership for the company. As such, he will be a resource and an inspiration across all shows.

And Rob Bredow [senior visual effects supervisor on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs] will also serve as creative technology supervisor for the company, a role which came about as a direct suggestion from his peers. The idea is to provide the very best tools and technical resources to the artists and Rob's new position is really about working with our technology group and our artists in creative decision-making. It is important that our tools absolutely serve the talent to create the imagery and to be sure that these technical resources work effectively from show to show, project to project. Rob, as someone on the front line, has a unique understanding of how to evaluate technology in the light of production and insure that the knowledge is distributed and applied throughout our pipeline. Again, this is a perfect example of coming from within the group, and will enable better communication with the various supervisor groups.

BD: Let's move on to your vision for animation. Both of you have strong pedigrees. Bob, you were head of production at Miramax, and before that at Turner Animation and Disney. Hannah, you come from live action, and have a very strong experience in story. You've worked in both live action and animation.