Village Gamer

Vancouver – Pixar Studios has announced that they will be opening a new 20 000 square foot Vancouver studio this fall. Pixar President told The Hollywood Reporter that the new studio will focus on the production of Pixar’s short films and other non-feature projects based for the most part on “legacy characters”, such as the characters of Toy Story.

“The operation will be small in size and dedicated to producing short-form quality computer animation for theme parks, DVDs, television and theatrical exhibition… for several different divisions of The Walt Disney Company”, he continued, while General Manager Jim Morris stated that “the studio plans to hire 75 – 100 employees, with the majority of them being Canadian.”

Amir Nasrabadi, who currently serves as the vice-president of operations and finance at DisneyToon Studios has been named as the General Manager for the new facility, while Pixar animator Dylan Brown, supervising animator on Ratatouille and Finding Nemo, will become the local Creative Director. Darwyn Peachey, currently the technical lead on the 3-D versions of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” has been named as the new Chief Technology Officer.

Morris further stated that “Canada, and Vancouver specifically, has had terrific tax incentives for this type of work, and I think they have a desire to grow this sort of business activity and get a critical mass. This will allow us to do more with the budgets that we have.”

Vancouver’s proximity to the Emeryville studio was also given as a reason for the location choice, and he went to compliment the Vancouver animation community, our post-production and visual effects facilities, as well as the quality of our industry schools.