Thomson has appointed Tim Sarnoff as president of its Technicolor Digital Productions division. This new division, within the Technicolor Business Group, will focus on the company's expertise in animation, games and visual effects. Its mission will be to develop Technicolor's animation operations in Bangalore and VFX operations in Beijing, as well as under the MPC brand in London, Los Angeles and Vancouver, into centers of excellence and growth.
As part of Thomson's strategic refocus on its content creator customer base, the company has specifically identified business activities centered around the entertainment industry's needs to create, manage and deliver content. In today's content production environment, there is a continuing increase in demand for high quality digital content creation. The new Technicolor Digital Productions division will target this growth area and build on Thomson's well-established capabilities in animation, games, and visual effects.
Technicolor additionally owns the Moving Picture Co. vfx studio, headquartered in London, which recently launched MPC Vancouver (WATCHMEN) and MPC LA, which will initially focus on vfx for commercials.
Prior to Technicolor, Tim Sarnoff was president of Sony Pictures Imageworks, an award winning visual effects and digital character animation company. In his 12 years of leadership at Imageworks, Sarnoff grew the company in size, marketshare and capability. His emphasis on character animation, combined with visual effects, led to the establishment of Sony Pictures Animation.
Before Imageworks, Sarnoff was SVP of Warner Digital Studios after joining Warner Bros. Animation in 1989 to set up Steven Spielberg's animated series TINY TOON ADVENTURES. At Warner Bros. Animation, Sarnoff managed the production of more than 400 episodes for such series as ANIMANICS, BATMAN, PINKY AND THE BRAIN and SUPERMAN. Sarnoff began his career as Program Director of the NBC affiliate KMIR and then moved to the NBC network as a Production Unit Manager. He is a graduate of Stanford University.
