CHATSWORTH, CA - CGI company GigaPix Studios has set up new headquarters in a 32,000-square-foot facility, here. Initially formed in 2002, GigaPix is headed by CEO Chris Blauvelt and president John Savage, and is focusing on producing animated feature films, television series and TV spots.
"GigaPix Studios enters the market at an opportune time for the independent," says Chris Blauvelt. "Financing for moderate-budgeted, well-crafted CGI features with great storytelling is readily available." The studio, formerly in Canoga Park, CA, has produced several short-form productions, including corporate projects for Merrill Lynch and Hope Canyon Entertainment. It is also in development of four features: "Junk Bots," "Twilight," "Alien SAR," and "Hypnopig."
John Savage says the studio will soon announce the start of a 90-minute theatrical film tied to a major theme park in development in the western U.S. The film is budgeted at $30 million.
Savage is responsible for spearheading content creation and licensing acquisition. The studio is currently adding staff in its ramp-up to feature production, and plans to add 15 new artists within the next 90 days. One of the first artists hired is Paul Ghezzo, whose credits include "The Last Samurai," "Haunted Mansion," and "The Day After Tomorrow." He has also worked for the small screen on "Without a Trace" and the new "Battlestar Galactica" for the Sci-Fi Channel.
Greg Pusateri, a former recording engineer, who specialized in children's entertainment at Saban Entertainment and later won an Emmy for "X-Files" for sound effects editing, has also come on board.
According to Savage, once in full swing, the studio will have 120 to 160 artist workstations. GigaPix recently installed two Blade Rack super computer clusters that brings their rendering power to well over 200 3.2 GHz CPUs, each with four gigs of RAM. This was in addition to several server upgrades that added a hundred Terabytes of storage to their Intranet infrastructure.