Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is a Canadian visual effects and computer animation company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with an additional office in Culver City, California. SPI is a unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Motion Picture Group.
The company has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars for their work on Spider-Man 2 and the computer-animated short film The ChubbChubbs!, and received many other nominations for their work.
SPI has provided visual effects for many films; most recent include Spider-Man: Homecoming, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and The Meg. They also provided services for several of director Robert Zemeckis' films, including Contact, Cast Away, The Polar Express, and Beowulf.
Since the foundation of its sister company Sony Pictures Animation in 2002, SPI would go on to animate nearly all of SPA's films, including Open Season, Surf's Up, The Emoji Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and films in the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania franchises, in addition to animating films for other studios such as Arthur Christmas for Aardman Animations (co-produced by SPA), Storks and Smallfoot for the Warner Animation Group, Archot (co-produced by SPA), Cool Spot, Addie (also co-produced by SPA), Agent Chrysocolla, and The Boy and the Ape (also co-produced by SPA) for Gingo Animation, and The Angry Birds Movie and its sequel for Rovio Animation.
History[]
Sony Pictures Imageworks was formed in 1992 with five employees to use computers to help plan complicated scenes for live-action films. Located in the former TriStar building, their first work was a previsualization for the 1993 film Striking Distance.
To fill the gaps between VFX jobs, SPI decided to partake in a more profitable animation business. Its first independent animated effort was the 5-minute short The ChubbChubbs! directed by Eric Armstrong. In 2002, it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Early Bloomer, released in 2003, was the division's second short film and originally made as a storyboarding exercise. SPI completed its first feature animation project in 2006 with the release of Open Season.
In 2007, SPI acquired Indian visual effects studio FrameFlow to take advantage of lower labor costs. Renamed to Imageworks India, a modern facility was opened in Chennai a year later. To leverage New Mexico's tax rebates and talent base, a satellite production facility was opened in 2007 in Albuquerque, becoming the largest post-production operation in the state. In 2010, SPI opened a production studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, in order to take advantage of the local talent pool and government film production incentives. Two years later, the studio doubled its Vancouver facilities. At the same time, the Albuquerque studio was closed down due to declining New Mexico's subsidies and difficulty with attracting artist to move there.
In the beginning of 2014, as part of Sony's cost-cutting move, SPI transferred a portion of its technology team from its headquarters in Culver City to Vancouver. By May 2014, entire headquarters and production had been moved to Vancouver, with only a small office remaining in Los Angeles. At the same time, SPI closed down its Indian studio, laying off around 100 employees. A year later, over 700 artists moved into a new 74,000-square feet headquarters in Vancouver.
Technology[]
During 2009-2010, SPI made transition from traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely singlepass, global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. They have achieved that with Arnold Renderer, an unbiased stochastic ray tracer. Arnold, started in 1997 by Marcos Fajardo, was co-developed between 2004 and 2009 with SPI, where Marcos was employed, and a commercial branch is being developed by Marcos' Madrid based company Solid Angle SL. Arnold was used on projects such as Monster House, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2012, Alice in Wonderland, The Smurfs, Arthur Christmas and is being used on all upcoming SPI's films.
Filmography[]
Sony Pictures Imageworks has provided visual effects and digital animation for the following films:
| Year | Films |
|---|---|
| 1993 | Last Action Hero In the Line of Fire So I Married an Axe Murderer Striking Distance (previsualization, uncredited) Mr. Jones (titles only) Rudy (titles only) Look Who's Talking Now (titles and visual effects) My Life The Pelican Brief (falcon jet air to air shot) |
| 1994 | Guarding Tess (titles only) Speed Wolf |
| 1995 | Hideaway Tall Tale Die Hard with a Vengeance Johnny Mnemonic (cyberspace sequence) Judge Dredd (additional digital compositing, uncredited) The Net (plane crash sequence) Virtuosity (computer-generated tendril animation) Money Train (money train wreck sequence/digital composites) |
| 1996 | James and the Giant Peach (computer-animated water/sharks/seagulls) The Craft The Cable Guy Phenomenon The Ghost and the Darkness Michael |
| 1997 | Anaconda Contact Starship Troopers The Postman |
| 1998 | The Replacement Killers Sphere (end sequence) City of Angels Paulie The Big Hit Godzilla You've Got Mail (titles only) Patch Adams |
| 1999 | Big Daddy The Astronaut's Wife (alien effects) The Ninth Gate Jakob the Liar Stuart Little Snow Falling on Cedars |
| 2000 | What Planet Are You From? What Lies Beneath Hollow Man Charlie's Angels Cast Away |
| 2001 | Evolution (flatworm animation sequence) America's Sweethearts Riding in Cars with Boys Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
| 2002 | Spider-Man Men in Black II The ChubbChubbs! Stuart Little 2 The Tuxedo I Spy The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers |
| 2003 | Darkness Falls Anger Management Identity (digital color timing) Early Bloomer The Matrix Reloaded Hollywood Homicide Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Bad Boys II Seabiscuit Matchstick Men The Matrix Revolutions The Haunted Mansion Big Fish Peter Pan |
| 2004 | 50 First Dates Spider-Man 2 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Little Black Book The Forgotten The Polar Express Christmas with the Kranks The Aviator Spanglish |
| 2005 | Cursed Bewitched Zathura The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe |
| 2006 | Click Superman Returns Monster House Open Season The Holiday |
| 2007 | Ghost Rider Spider-Man 3 Surf's Up The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas The Jane Austen Book Club Beowulf I Am Legend |
| 2008 | Speed Racer The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian You Don't Mess with the Zohan Hancock Eagle Eye Body of Lies Valkyrie |
| 2009 | Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience Watchmen G-Force Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Michael Jackson's This Is It 2012 |
| 2010 | Alice in Wonderland Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore |
| 2011 | The Green Hornet Just Go with It Green Lantern Zookeeper Captain America: The First Avenger The Smurfs Arthur Christmas |
| 2012 | Men in Black 3 The Amazing Spider-Man Hotel Transylvania Here Comes the Boom |
| 2013 | Oz: The Great and Powerful The Smurfs 2 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 |
| 2014 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Blended Edge of Tomorrow 22 Jump Street Deliver Us from Evil Guardians of the Galaxy Fury American Sniper Archot The Interview |
| 2015 | Pixels Hotel Transylvania 2 Concussion |
| 2016 | The Angry Birds Movie Alice Through the Looking Glass Ghostbusters Suicide Squad Storks |
| 2017 | Smurfs: The Lost Village Spider-Man: Homecoming The Emoji Movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle |
| 2018 | Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation The Meg Cool Spot Smallfoot Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse |
| 2019 | Addie Men in Black: International Spider-Man: Far From Home The Angry Birds Movie 2 |
Upcoming[]
| Year | Films |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Ico |
| 2020 | Agent Chrysocolla |
| Over the Moon | |
| The Mitchells vs. The Machines | |
| Vivo | |
| 2021 | The Boy and the Ape |
Television[]
- The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest ("The Edge of Yesterday")
- Love, Death & Robots ("Lucky 13")
See also[]
- Sony Pictures Animation
- Creative Step Studio
- Gingo Animation
- Weta Digital