PIEDMONT, QUEBEC — Ubisoft’s Hybride Technologies (www.hybride.com) division has entered into a strategic alliance with George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which has offices in San Francisco, Singapore, Vancouver and London. The relationship between Hybride and ILM began in 2013 while working on Pacific Rim. Since then, in conjunction with ILM, Hybride has contributed visual effects on
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Unbroken, Tomorrowland and
Jurassic World. More recently, the studio was entrusted by ILM to craft visual effects for several sequences for
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects and won the British Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
“Over these few years, we’ve developed a great connection with the team at ILM and it’s exactly for that reason that they’ve decided to entrust Hybride as their partner in Quebec,” explains Pierre Raymond, president and head of operations at Hybride. “This alliance is a huge vote of confidence that will allow us to consolidate our position in the VFX industry and inevitably strengthen our recruitment capacity. Hybride is extremely proud to partner up with the visual effects giant which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year”.
Founded in 1991, Hybride was one of the first digital visual effects companies in Quebec. Since then, it has produced high-end feature film visual effects for several mega-productions and currently employs over 100 team members in its studio located in Piedmont, Quebec. In order to increase its production capacity to service the new alliance with ILM, Hybride has expanded its operations to Montreal with the opening of a new creative space located in the same building as Ubisoft on St-Laurent Street.
"In recent years, Montreal has become an international visual effects hub with a world-class talent base," says Pierre Raymond. "Having offices in Montreal instantly gives us access to additional resources. For Hybride, this represents an increased capacity to take on additional workloads all the while maintaining the level of quality for which Hybride is recognized.”
“In our search to collaborate with the industry’s best talent, Hybride has consistently risen to the top, proving time and again their ability to execute visual effects work for us at the highest level,” notes Gretchen Libby, ILM executive in charge, global studio. “ILM places a high value on innovation, creativity and technological expertise, as does Hybride. Today’s announcement is the result of this shared
vision.”