BAFTA and multi-award winning VFX and animation studio, Jellyfish Pictures, has announced the opening of a new virtual animation facility in Sheffield.
Two years on from Jellyfish Pictures’ pioneering efforts creating Europe’s first virtual VFX studios back in 2017, Jellyfish Pictures’ Sheffield studio, situated in the city centre within the state-of-the-art Cooper Project Complex, will operate in a completely PC over IP environment. With all technology and pipeline housed in a centrally based co-location, the studio is ready to virtualise its distributed workstations through Teradici’s remote visualisation solution; allowing for total flexibility and scalability. The new site is the company’s fifth studio in the UK and is in addition to Jellyfish Pictures’ established studios in Fitzrovia, Central London, Brixton, South London and Oval, South London.
The Sheffield site will sit on the same logical LAN as the other four studios, providing access to the company’s PixStor Software Defined Storage (SDS) from Pixit Media, enabling remote collaboration and support for flexible working practices. With the rest of Jellyfish Pictures’ studios all TPN (Trusted Partner Network) accredited, the Sheffield studio will follow in their footsteps, utilising PixStor’s multi-tenancy container services for audit-compliant secure data separation and isolation.
“We have multiple projects coming up that will demand crewing up with the very best talent very quickly. Casting off the constraints of infrastructure, which traditionally has been the industry’s way of working, means we are not limited to the London talent pool and can easily scale up in a more efficient and economical way than ever before.”
Phil Dobree, CEO of Jellyfish Pictures
The innovative studio will be headed up by Jellyfish Pictures’ newest appointment, Animation Director, Kevin Spruce. With an impressive career spanning over 30 years, Spruce joins Jellyfish Pictures from Framestore, where he oversaw a team of 120 as the company’s Head of Animation. During his time at Framestore, Spruce worked as Animation Supervisor on a roster of blockbuster feature films including Fantastic Beastsand Where to Find Them, The Legend of Tarzan and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Prior to his 17 year stint at Framestore, Spruce held positions at Canadian animation company, Bardel and Spielberg helmed feature animation studio, Amblimation.
“With what technology can offer now, the next logical step is to bring the work to people rather than always expecting them to move south. Acting now as Animation Director for Jellyfish Pictures Sheffield it’s our intention to recruit a creative team here to strengthen the company’s capacity to handle the expanding slate of work currently in-house and beyond. I am very excited to be part of this new venture north with Jellyfish. It’s a vision of how creative companies can grow in new ways and access talent pools further afield.”
Kevin Spruce, Animation Director, Jellyfish
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to have Kevin on board with us. His experience of the industry and knowledge of building a great team is invaluable to both the success of our Northern outfit and to Jellyfish Pictures’ overall growth. Sheffield, and the North of England as whole, already has a great community of creative talent, which we are looking forward to contributing to and cultivating as time goes on.”
Phil Dobree, CEO of Jellyfish Pictures
Jellyfish Pictures’ northern presence will start off with a small team of animators working on the company’s original animation projects, with a view to expand its team and set up with a large feature animation project by the end of the year.
“We all know London, and more specifically Soho, is an expensive place to play, both for employees working here and for the companies operating here. Technology is enabling us to expand our horizon across the UK and beyond, as well as offer talent an out of living in the big city.”
Phil Dobree, CEO of Jellyfish Pictures
