Pixomondo

Pixomondo

Industry	Visual effects
Founded	2001 (2001) in Pfungstadt, Germany
Founder	Thilo Kuther
Headquarters	Los Angeles, United States
Number of locations	7 (2016)
Key people	Thilo Kuther (CEO)
Services	Visual effects, CGI characters, 3D animation and pre-visualization
Number of employees	400 (2016)
Website	pixomondo.com

Pixomondo is an international visual effects company with a global network of studios in Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vancouver, Beijing, Toronto and Shanghai. The company produces feature film, television and commercial visual effects. As of 2016, Pixomondo employs over 400 people worldwide.

History

Pixomondo was originally founded in Pfungstadt, Germany as a design studio in 2001 by Thilo Kuther. The company began its work creating video installations and 3D-animations for high end corporate clients such as Porsche and Bertelsmann. By the end of 2003, Pixomondo consisted of its one office in Pfungstadt and 40 employees. In 2005, the company first began working in the entertainment business by producing the visual effects for the German television film Atlantropa - Der Traum vom neuen Kontinent. In 2005, a second location, specializing in feature films, opened in Ludwigsburg, Germany. At this location, the company produced nearly all the visual effects for the international feature film The Red Baron, which was released in 2008, and earned Pixomondo first international recognition. In the same year, the first studio abroad opened in London. In 2007 and 2008, studios were opened in Frankfurt am Main and Los Angeles, respectively. Also in 2008, Pixomondo was commissioned by director Roland Emmerich to produce over 100 complete CG-environments for his feature film 2012. Pixomondo's first offices in Asia, specifically in Shanghai and Beijing, were opened in 2009. In 2011, the company expanded its London office and added two studios in Munich and Hamburg, as well as one in Toronto in 2011.

On February 26, 2012, Pixomondo won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for its work on the film Hugo. The award was presented to Alex Henning and Ben Grossmann, who were the projects supervisors. With 854 scenes that have a running time of about 62 minutes in the final film, Pixomondo produced about 94% of the films visual effects.^[1]

Pixomondo closed its London office in February 2013.^[2] In March 2013, Pixomondo closed its Shanghai office, laying off around 20 animators and artists and moving another 13 to the location in Beijing in the process. On May 31, 2013, the company also closed its Berlin office, naming restructuring processes as a reason for the closure and announced on their Facebook site, that the closure would strengthen the other locations.^[3] In August 2013, it became known, Pixomondo was experiencing a cash crunch, which resulted in late, or no paychecks at all for various freelancers.^[4] As of 2014, the office in Shanghai has been reopened.^[5]

Locations

Currently, Pixomondo has offices in the following locations:^[5]

Filmography

Movies

TV shows

TV productions

Awards and Nominations

The following list of awards and nominations for Pixomondo lists accolades that have been presented to a team containing at least one employee of Pixomondo.

External links

• Official website
• Pixomondo at the Internet Movie Database
• Fastcompany Profile

References