Grace & Wild Inc., the Farmington Hills-based parent company to a number of production and postproduction divisions, has formed a special effects and animation production unit known as X.
Its services will combine a variety of capabilities that are offered by other Grace & Wild divisions, including hand-drawn cel animation, stop motion and clay animation, 3-D computer graphics, Flame and Henry, Infinity effects and compositing, special effects production and digital editing. Staffers from other Grace & Wild divisions and freelancers will be affiliated with X and brought in to collaborate on projects.
The new entity will be headed up by executive producer Mark Koblin and creative technical director Richard Roy. Koblin-who will also be assigned to work on special projects for Grace & Wild Digital Studios, Farmington Hills, as needed-most recently served as executive producer at animation house Travelling Pictures, Farmington Hills.
For the past eight-and-a-half years, Roy worked as animation technical director at Grace & Wild Digital Studios. Prior to this, he spent eight years running his own Birmingham, Mich.-based special effects/animation firm, Filmworks, which was absorbed into Grace & Wild after the company acquired the shop in ’92.
According to Grace & Wild president Steve Wild, X is an outgrowth of what’s been happening within Grace & Wild Digital Studios for the past few years. "There has been a loosely defined group," said Wild, "headed by Richard Roy, that specialized in effects and animation production and supervision. They’ve done some very original work and the time is right to give them a higher profile."
Roy affirmed that he’s worked as a sort of unsanctioned division for awhile at Grace & Wild Digital Studios. "I kind of run a pirate ship," said Roy. "I’ve been working in this town for so long that I get the calls for all the wacky stuff: when it’s something different or weird, where it doesn’t fall in the category of X-many hours in Henry, or whatever. I’m always experimenting with different techniques and blending technology to create imagery."
Roy has overseen hundreds of film and stop-motion animation projects. Among his credits are spots for Ford and White Castle for J. Walter Thompson, Detroit; Chrysler dealership spots for Bozell Worldwide, Southfield, and spots for the Detroit Zoo out of Doner, Southfield, which include the ’98 Clio-winning spot "Asteroid." More recently, Roy has wrapped a three-spot campaign for Farmers Insurance out of Campbell-Ewald, Warren, Mich.
"What will make X successful are the group’s incredible creativity and distinctive approach to effects production," said Koblin. "Richard appreciates client storyboards in a very unique way. He’s constantly coming up with new ways of doing things that no one has ever thought of. Couple that with Grace & Wild’s vast resources in both traditional animation and digital technology and it’s amazing what can happen."
The division has already wrapped its first assignment: a three minute promotional film for Grace & Wild’s Film Craft Lab. The black-and-white experimental film features the Wild Swan Theatre, an interpretive sign-language theatrical group based in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Additional divisions of Grace & Wild include Grace & Wild Digital Studios, Postique, Griot Editorial, Film Craft Lab, Projections and IN GEAR Equipment Rental/Detroit Power & Light.
