French VFX consultants Franck Lambertz and Sophie Leclerc have spent most of their careers working exterior of their native France.
Lambertz was with MPC for 18 years, serving to to arrange its L.A. hub in 2008, adopted by Amsterdam in 2013 and Paris in 2015 in addition to spending time at its London HQ.
Leclerc labored as a contract visible results producer in L.A. for greater than 20 years for studios together with Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount, twentieth Century Fox, EuropaCorp and Newline.
The pair have not too long ago returned to France to co-head the brand new Paris studio of main Montreal-based VFX agency Rodeo FX, the credit of which embody Stranger Things, The Witcher, The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, John Wick: Chapter 4, Dune and Blue Beetle, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Zack Snyder’s Rebel.
The Paris studio marks the primary French hub for Rodeo FX, which now employs round 900 VFX artists throughout 5 websites additionally primarily based in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and L.A.
Lambertz and Leclerc are amongst a rising variety of French visible results professionals returning dwelling because the nation’s VFX sector scales up.
This progress is thanks largely to the introduction in 2020 of a ten% bonus on the essential 30% Tax Rebate for International Production for incoming productions which additionally do VFX work in France in addition to elevated funding in infrastructure and coaching below the nation’s Great Image Factory initiative.
“When you do at least two million euros ($2.1M) worth of special effects in France you get a 40% rebate on your entire eligible spend. There are more and more companies looking towards France to both shoot and do post-production,” says Leclerc.
Lambertz suggests this has created a virtuous circle below which extra native VFX artists are staying within the nation, or returning, because it attracts greater VFX tasks, with this expertise pool in flip attracting extra work and corporations like Rodeo FX to arrange store.
“France has always been a breeding ground for VFX artists with a good level of training and skills on a par with elsewhere, but these people would leave for London or the U.S. once they got to a certain level because French cinema – even if it is creative and of a high quality – didn’t offer a lot of opportunities in terms of visual effects work,” he says.
“People like me would flee, looking for fresh challenges abroad but now with everything that is coming together thanks to the rebate and the extra investment here that’s no longer necessary as we’re now beginning to attract bigger VFX projects in France.”
He factors to the rising membership numbers of the French department of the Visual Effects Society (VES ) as seasoned professionals return dwelling.
Other elements supporting the expansion embody the promotional work {of professional} physique France VFX in addition to the nation’s community of world class VFX colleges such because the ARTFX college of digital arts, which has branches in Lille, Montpellier and Paris.
“It’s an incredible school. It trains the students in such a way that they are operational from the day they leave,” says Leclerc.
Rodeo FX’s push into France has been spearheaded by the corporate’s founding President Sebastian Moreau in Montreal, who personally oversaw the creation of bespoke the state-of-the-art studio, hidden behind a nondescript façade within the French capital’s eleventh arrondissement.
“We’re very optimistic about the opportunities the Paris office will bring to Rodeo FX. Sophie and Franck make an excellent team to help the studio grow and open new markets in Europe,” he says.
The studio formally opened its doorways in June 2023, with Leclerc arriving in October adopted by Lambertz in November.
Leclerc first related with Moreau in L.A., the place she contracted Rodeo FX to work on productions comparable to Luc Besson’s Lucy and Valerian and the City Of A Thousand Planets.
“That’s how we got to know one another. About six months ago he said, ‘I’m opening a branch in Paris, are you interested?’ He was drawn by the talent pool, combined with the tax rebate,” she says.
The goal is for the Paris studio to generate its personal contracts, whether or not they be associated to work shot in France and wider Europe, or elsewhere, relatively than mop up work generated by the North American hubs, though its workers will collaborate with these different studios.
“Part of my job is to bring in the films. Thanks to my time in L.A., I have good network and know lots of directors there such as Luc Besson. We did a lot of films together,” says Leclerc.
As properly as massive incoming worldwide dramas and flicks taking pictures, Leclerc advised France’s transfer into extra bold productions – comparable to Pathé’s Three Musketeers trilogy and Netflix’s hit collection Lupin – may even be a rising supply of labor.
Lambertz emphasizes that Rodeo FX is open to all types of content material.
“The beauty of our profession is that it’s in perpetual evolution. The way we do things today is not the same as we did them 20, 10 or even five years ago. Rodeo FX is constantly evolving. It doesn’t confine itself to movies or episodic work but also works on advertising campaigns and experiential projects,” he says, citing Rodeo FX’s Stranger Things’s The Demogorgon Experience activation for Netflix through the 2023 version of Cannes Lions.
Some eight months after its official opening, the Paris studio employs some 30 workers and is presently engaged on two U.S. exhibits (which it can not disclose), which have been conceived to be shot partly in France in order to faucet into the ten% VFX bonus.
“The work has been shared between a number of Parisian VFX studios,” says Lambertz.
Quizzed on whether or not the corporate’s arrival is likely to be seen as a menace by pre-existing VFX corporations in Paris, comparable to BUF, The Yard and the French department of MPC, Lambertz advised it’s seen relatively as a optimistic improvement.
“We’re going to need a lot of VFX providers to be able to deliver big projects on time and to a certain quality,” he says. “Having more VFX companies in Paris further professionalizes the sector and reassures potential American clients.”
Leclerc concurs.
“The increase in VFX companies will draw bigger productions as is the case in London or Montreal because they’ll be a bigger pool of artists.”
Discussion about this post