Companies that do VFX for lots of artsy/indie features? (outside the US)

[notthere]

Companies listed here have done VFX work for multiple movies of at least some substance in the past ~3 years, sorted roughly by the percentage of those movies out of all their projects (and countries sorted by the average percentage among their studios). The sorting is obviously somewhat subjective but I felt probably still more helpful than just alphabetical.


Canada

Toronto
Intelligent Creatures


Sweden

Göteborg
Filmgate


UK

London
Framestore
Baseblack
Molinare
nvizible
Pixomondo
Peerless


Norway

Oslo
Storm Studio


Germany

Berlin
The Post Republic

Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg
Pixomondo


Mostly commercials, occassional artsy/indie features:

Sweden

Stockholm
Fido
The Chimney Pot


Germany

Berlin
Pictorion Das Werk


Original Post:

I'd really love to compile a list of companies that do that...

What I consider artsy/indie (or at least "... with some depth" - doesn't have to be truly artsy or indie. Just no mundane blockbusters... even though I of course wouldn't mind working on that once in a while. Still interesting from a strictly technical point of view...) is best exemplified by some companies and projects I am already aware of.

The only Canadian company I know about so far - Intelligent Creatures. With e.g.: Everybody's Fine, Traitor, The Number 23, Babel, The Fountain, Stay, Stranger Than Fiction, etc.
European examples: Melancholia, Let The Right One In, Max Manus, Martyrs, etc. (which I realize had effects done largely by companies that on average appear to do more commercials than feature film - Ghost VFX, Fido, Filmgate, Buzz Image Group)

As you can see, that's quite the small list. I'm sure there are more. I realize many of them are probably located in California but there must be more outside of the US too.

[tommy138]

senate vfx
nvizible
lipsync

are a couple that spring to mind in London

[scrimski]

Pixomondo, post republic, pictorion, mangofilm in Berlin. Indie jobs aren't advertised usually though, I get them through people I used to work with.

[notthere]

Pixomondo? Really? Sucker Punch, Fast Five, Super 8, Green Lantern, Zookeeper - the list of shallow blockbusters goes on and on... sure, they've done more thoughtful things here or there (e.g. Melancholia, Game of Thrones) but in a list like this one I'd only put them after a warning that says "mostly blockbusters" or something like that ;-)

At any rate, I really appreciate all of the suggestions so far - please keep them coming!
Ii'll try to update my first posting in the coming days by creating an actual list, so others may benefit from this as well...

As far as jobs not being advertised... I hope to someday find a nice company that matches what I outlined in my OP and work there long-term. I'm not too keen on hopping from project to project unless I have no other choice...

[Andreas.Jablonka]

Pixomondo? Really? Sucker Punch, Fast Five, Super 8, Green Lantern, Zookeeper - the list of shallow blockbusters goes on and on... sure, they've done more thoughtful things here or there (e.g. Melancholia, Game of Thrones) but in a list like this one I'd only put them after a warning that says "mostly blockbusters" or something like that ;-)

At any rate, I really appreciate all of the suggestions so far - please keep them coming!
Ii'll try to update my first posting in the coming days by creating an actual list, so others may benefit from this as well...

As far as jobs not being advertised... I hope to someday find a nice company that matches what I outlined in my OP and work there long-term. I'm not too keen on hopping from project to project unless I have no other choice...

you fail to realize that pixomondo is german company that did vfx for over 20(30?) years. only in recent (read after 2012) years have they become more a blockbuster house since they have a US office.

[Boris28]

Yeh I liked pixomondo always mostly as they are 3ds max studio, started small and because I lived in Germany few years, now they have a studios in China and USA as all large studios for slavery work.
There is many Studios In Bulgaria (Worldwide VFX) for example Who made vfx for Connan and Epxendables also some other guys that mostly make stuff for scifi flicks, Hungary forgot the name, Croatia some studio moved to California and are now called MTVstudio or something.

I was this year in Austria and heard there is some companies there too, I worked with a French guy who works in a small France indie VFX company in Paris area forgot the name.

I hope it helps

Cheers

[scrimski]

Pixomondo? Really?

Yep. Can't tell you what, but I can asssure you it was very indie.

[pingking]

and they still do local tv and cinema productions which have a very small budget

[notthere]

Alright, I finally got around to creating that list.

I've chosen not to list places like Senate VFX because if I list them, I might as well list all big VFX studios. Because almost all of them do the occasional indie projects. But that's not what this list is supposed to be about. It's about where it's exactly the opposite - companies where blockbusters are the exception. Of course that's an ideal hard to achieve, so I've come up with the rule of only taking the last three years into account. I think it gets a bit pathetic when you get to the companies lower in the list and maybe less than 25% of their projects had substance but I also didn't want to disregard too many of the suggestions that were made here.

Also, I've listed only those where I could find proof. Because listing them just based on faith, even though there's no information about it on either their website, nor imdb - wouldn't exactly make it credible and something I'd rather leave to individual users to find out for themselves whether they want to act on it.

you fail to realize that pixomondo is german company that did vfx for over 20(30?) years. only in recent (read after 2012) years have they become more a blockbuster house since they have a US office.

Do I?

Founded in 2001 by CEO and Executive Producer Thilo Kuther, Pixomondo began its work creating video installations and 3d-animations for high end corporate clients
(source)

Knight and Day (2010)
The A-Team (2010)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Ninja Assassin (2009)
(source)

besides - "after 2012"? are you from the future or was that a typo? ;-)

[notthere]

And by the way - only one company in Canada? Come on people, there has got to be at least one other in Vancouver ;-)

@ Boris28

It would have been a lot more helpful had you not forgotten all of those names ;-P
Austria, I have talked about to a couple of people and searched for myself (because I think Vienna is damn great) but got nowhere. It seems to me Austrian film is still largely traditional, so the few small studios there are all about commercials and more or less trashy TV productions.

[Boris28]

If I remember you have some databases online. Here is one I just used the magical google.

http://links.vfxy.com/business/vfx-studios-europe/

[pingking]

besides - "after 2012"? are you from the future or was that a typo? ;-)

i think he meant the movie "2012"

[notthere]

If I remember you have some databases online. Here is one I just used the magical google.

I am familiar with Google, thank you very much.
However, it's a pain to check the credits of dozens of companies, figure out which ones you haven't looked at in the past and so on. Which is why I created this list in the first place.
If you just want to work anywhere or you want to get a first overview of the industry, such sites do a fairly good job. But I find that they are often not up to date, so one may miss out on a lot of interesting places. That vfxy.com for instance - no Filmgate, no Storm, no Post Republic (and I didn't bother to check my whole list). It seems one would be better off compiling one's own list by googling "VFX company Europe" or something.
Which is obviously how/why I started my own list and why I thought that it might be very nice for others to have as well.

i think he meant the movie "2012"

Oh. Yes. That makes a lot more sense :-)