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From arch-viz to visual effects, Mark Ramshaw meets the studios that made their mark on the CG industry in the last year. This week, The Senate…
Unsung hero syndrome invariably accompanies specialisation in ‘invisible effects’. Nevertheless, boutique facility The Senate has been quietly building up an enviable reputation in the last few years, delivering seamless environment and visual effects work on a series of films, while continuing to push the boundaries in the higher end of the broadcast market – an area that spawned the company in the first place when several independent artists teamed up to work on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 mini-series, Band of Brothers.
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▲ All-digital library and snow (top) and Kings College Cambridge gate house, created for The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“It’s been a conscious decision to specialise in this sort of work,” says Sarah Hemsley, CEO at The Senate. “Sadly, you often see companies take on anything and then sometimes they just can’t deliver. The best thing in business is to know your strengths and play to them, and that’s very much what we do.”
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While Hemsley has been working to forge strong relationships with the major studios over the last few years – building to a recent body of work that includes 215 shots for Voyage of the Dawn Treader and 180 for Captain America: The First Avenger – she stresses that the UK remains a vital touchstone.
“We’re very keen to work on smaller UK projects. We’re currently involved with a British movie called Fast Girls, and have also worked on TV projects like Downton Abbey and Luthor. We have the ability to scale down or up to 50 seats, and so can work well with any size project and be very economical for the studios.”
This scalability, says Helmsley, also enables The Senate to avoid subcontracting. “Many people now outsource things like roto work, which is harming our talent pool. We take the approach of bringing people in-house at a roto/junior level, and then give them the chance to work up through the company.”
As for the upcoming year, the studio already has a raft of high-profile projects lined up. “2012 brings Wrath of the Titans, Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows – which has some really great work in it – and a few things I sadly can’t discuss yet,” says Hemlsey. “It’s going to be a very busy year. The future is looking rosy.”
Visit www.senatevfx.com to discover what the studio is working on right now.
