Facilities Will Target Movies, TV, and 3D-Conversion Work

In another move toward the globalization of the VFX industry, Digital Domain (Los Angeles) and Reliance MediaWorks (Mumbai, India) announced a partnership that will open new visual-effects facilities in Mumbai and London.
A new studio in Mumbai will more than double the number of VFX artists employed at Reliance’s operations there – 650 artists will be aded to the existing roster of more than 500 – and a new Digital Domain VFX team will take up residence at Reliance’s U.K. facilities. Both studios will connect to Digital Domain in Los Angeles through Reliance’s fiber-optic network.

The companies said the new facilities are targeted at movies, TV, commercials and catalog 3D-conversion products. Operations are slated to begin next month.

The companies did not discuss financial terms of the deal, but The Los Angeles Times reported that Reliance will own the new facilities and Digital Domain will manage them.

Digital Domain had already made an aggressive move into the 3D-conversion space last year, when it relocated stereo specialist In-Three from Westlake Village, CA, to Florida, taking advantage of tax incentives in that state. (Digital Domain hopes to raise up to $115 million in a forthcoming IPO.) Just last month, Deluxe consolidated the former CIS Visual Effects into Method Studios, giving the new operation offices in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. (See our interview with EVP Dan Glass for more on that move.)

Reliance may be a newcomer on the Hollywood scenes, but it’s a major player. It offered financial backing for DreamWorks Studios on its 2009 relaunch as an independent company under Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider, giving it a 50 percent stake.

Reliance purchased Lowry Digital (Burbank, CA), a well-known pioneer in digital image restoration, from DTS in 2008. The company has been renamed Reliance MediaWorks Burbank, and its studio clients include Disney, Paramount, and Fox. It is also connected to Mumbai through the company’s fiber-optic network.

For more information: www.digitaldomain.com; www.reliancemediaworks.com.