ImageMovers Digital is on the Move
Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers Digital studio, backed by The Walt Disney Studios, has already outgrown its San Rafael site and expanded into a larger 3-D performance capture animation facility in Novato, California, redeveloping the former Hamilton Air Force base by setting up office space in Hangars 7 and 9. ImageMovers is currently making its first feature under the Disney banner, A Christmas Carol (opening Nov. 6, 2009), with Jim Carrey as Scrooge and the three Christmas ghosts. VFXWorld recently spoke exclusively with Doug Chiang, the production designer of The Polar Express and Beowulf, and currently EVP of ImageMovers Digital, about the challenges of starting a studio from scratch.
Bill Desowitz: Let's begin with the move. How's it going?
Doug Chiang: ImageMovers is doing great. We're in the process of moving into our new Hamilton home in Novato: the renovated hangers are almost done. It's about 130,000 square feet. By the end of the year we'll be at around 300, and, as you know, we're making A Christmas Carol.
BD: So what's it been like starting over with a brand new company?
DC: The whole experiment, or the whole idea behind the ImageMovers Digital, was to get Bob more involved with the actual team. And it actually has worked out quite well because the whole pre-production and production workflow is something that Bob is very familiar with. It's based on the live-action workflow. And now what we're trying to do with ImageMovers is to do the same workflow for the post-production part of it. Bob has been out to the studio doing turnovers and he's been meeting one on one with all the artists involved. And as a workflow it works great because we can work directly with Bob. And he gives all his notes to people that are actually working on the shots. For instance, he [recently] had a big teleconference meeting with all the animators -- everybody that was working on a sequence with them. He knew who was working on what and could get direct feedback. And that kind of direct, intimate contact is what is helping define the studio. It makes everyone feel part of the process: that we're one big team. There's no client/vendor relationship anymore. And that's something that Bob was thrilled about because, ultimately, it creates a much better flow of information. So what Bob is conveying everyone knows what is expected for the day's work. And everyone is in synch, so it's one of the defining processes for making our work more efficient.
BD: What are some of the lessons you've learned?
DC: A lot of it is just that: breaking down barriers so everyone could cross disciplines. And that's one of the things that we really want to encourage. We're trying not to compartmentalize departments. For instance, people in rigging can also work in modeling and vice versa. It's one of those things where the workflow becomes very fluid and it goes back and forth. It's actually a philosophy that's very fundamental in terms of the art department. And it's a philosophy we're trying to imbue at the whole company. We're basically one gigantic company. And by breaking it down, people feel very liberated. So we keep it very collaborative, very open.
BD: What about improving the technology that you're using?
DC: That's one of the great advantages of starting from scratch: we can take all the lessons that we've learned from the last three films and find out what worked best and what didn't. So we can pick and choose and make the best workflow for us. The downside is that we're creating a lot of our tools from scratch. That takes a little bit of ramp up. But what we're finding is that once these new tools and technologies come online, they're actually improving our workflow as expected. So it may take a little longer to get there, but once we get there it moves much faster. For instance, in terms of the schedule for A Christmas Carol, we're actually much further along than we ever were for Beowulf or Polar Express.
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