Trolled on Reddit

June 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Quick moment to respond to this Reddit thread in which we’re taking some criticism.

We’ve “branded” ourselves with Occupy in our name because we share the same goals as the global Occupy Movement, as well as other bottom up movements which represent 99% of working people through out the world. Just like Occupy we are bottom up fighting a top down machine, doing our part to help organize (physically) and disseminate information. We are also thinking globally and acting locally on behalf of our little vfx industry, which is desperately suffering from the same negatives as many other industries throughout the 1st world which the larger movement has done an excellent job at bringing attention to. So regardless of what we call ourselves, we’re trying to do our part to help the situation get batter, rather than being passive and complacent.

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DD: What we know so far

June 14, 2013 by 29 Comments

We would like to take a moment to summarize what we have heard about significant changes announced at Digital Domain so far.

As a disclaimer, this information comes from secondary sources and some of it is potentially hearsay. If we got something wrong, please speak up and correct us!

Digital Domain had a company-wide meeting yesterday on June 13th. In it, CEO Ed Ulbrich informed employees about long-standing rumors that have been circulating around. We have summarized the main talking points in the list below.

  • DD Executive management feels that in order to remain competitive in feature production, it simply is no longer cost-effective to perform shot production in Los Angeles.
  • All shot production work will take place in Vancouver and elsewhere for features, no longer in Los Angeles.
  • DD Venice facility, located at 300 Hampton Drive, to close permanently sometime before the end of the year. It has long been rumored that the lease on the buildings expires this year, and they opted not to renew it.
  • DD Commercials is doing well, and will remain in the Playa Vista facility.
  • Production management, executive management, creative supervision, look development, systems, and pipeline to remain in Los Angeles.
  • DD unable to locate a building to house feature, commercial, and virtual production in the area.
  • DD currently employs roughly 450 people in the Los Angeles area, including features and commercials. That number is to be scaled down to 250, and all remaining employees will be consolidated in the Playa Vista facility.
  • Minor layoffs occurred in the Venice facility yesterday. Exact count or what positions/departments affected unknown.
  • Timeline for closure of Venice facility and relocation of remaining employees to Playa Vista unknown, but will most likely happen before the end of 2013.

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