Press Release from Creature Art and Mechanics Digital:

CAMd founders Andrea Maiolo, Chad Vernon, Tim Naylor and Scott C. Smith

San Rafael, CA -- A group of artists and technologists that helped bring Davy Jones to life in Pirates of the Caribbean, and made everyone’s favorite childhood robots leap into action in Transformers, have launched a new studio based in Marin County, CA. Formerly creature and character designers from ILM, Digital Domain and Imagemovers Digital, these artists have launched Creature Art and Mechanics Digital (CAM Digital or CAMd). The announcement was made by the new company’s founding partners Scott C. Smith, Timothy Naylor, Andrea Maiolo and Chad Vernon.

CAMd is headquartered at 32TEN Studios in San Rafael, CA, the historic facility originally occupied by George Lucas’ ILM.

In a joint statement, the founding partners said, “Our mission is to facilitate Producers, Directors, and Visual Effect Supervisors into bringing their digital characters and creatures to life, using radically new methods and technologies. We believe that the time has come to rethink and modernize the creation of CG Digital Characters, while dramatically reducing costs and increasing efficiency. This means a lower budget for the creation of digital characters in feature films, animation, and even videogames, while giving Directors, Producers, Heads Of Studios, etc., direct access to the design and creation process.”

CAMd is a high-end character and creature design and development studio creating production-ready assets for feature film and animation with applications for games, television and other transmedia outlets.

According to its partners, CAMd has proprietary technologies that allow them to do some previously unattainable production pipeline tricks. The studio is leveraging its technology and creative capacity to serve a full spectrum of clients, from the Director/Producer who wants over-the-shoulder control to the Visual Effects Supervisor that needs a highly experienced creative team to build his or her vision into a reality.

CAMd will offer a Creature Shop that will hand off characters and creatures to a studio or its vendors, and support the production of that asset through to final compositing, if necessary.