After some major changes a couple of weeks ago–the acquisition of the majority stake in the company by Hong Kong-based Sun Innovation, and mainstay executive Ed Ulbrich stepping down from his position as CEO–Digital Domain has ushered in a new regime which looks much like the old regime, promoting a pair of familiar faces to leadership positions: Rich Flier who becomes president of the advertising & games division, and Terry Clotiaux who assumes the presidency of the feature film production division. Both report to Daniel Seah, a Sun Innovation exec who succeeded Ulbrich late last month as CEO. Seah is CEO of what has been renamed Digital Domain 3.0 (consisting of Digital Domain 3.0, Inc., Digital Domain Productions 3.0 and Mothership Media, Inc.).
Flier oversees all advertising and videogame visual effects and production at Digital Domain 3.0 and sister shop Mothership. A 20-year veteran brand strategist and marketer, Flier joined the company in 2011 as executive producer. He was instrumental in building the division’s client base and expertise in the creative development and production of videogame content for Activision, Electronic Arts, 2K Games, Microsoft and other top publishers, developers and ad agencies. In 2012 he was elevated to VP. Prior to Digital Domain, Flier co-founded boutique games marketing and production agency Secret Identity. He was also the VP of interactive entertainment at 3D imaging company 3DV Systems, which was sold to Microsoft and its technology became part of the Kinect system. He spent several years at DDB Worldwide, was a VP at Creative Domain’s interactive entertainment division (now Trailer Park), and has held marketing and production roles at DreamWorks Interactive.
Clotiaux, a veteran VFX executive credited on more than 35 feature films in a 25-year career, oversees all visual effects feature film production at Digital Domain 3.0’s California and Vancouver studios. He was EP of Digital Domain’s feature film division from 2007 to 2009 and rejoined the company as VP of the division in March 2013. Prior to that he was president of global VFX production at Prime Focus Group. Clotiaux has also served as sr. VFX producer at Sony Pictures Imageworks/Columbia Pictures and as a VFX producer for Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, InterMedia Films and Columbia Pictures/Tristar. His credits include Avatar, Spider-Man 3, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions, Independence Day and other top features, commercials and trailers.
Ulbrich stepped down as Digital Domain’s CEO last month but entered into a creative consultant arrangement with the company and continues as producer of its upcoming feature film Enders Game (a Digital Domain co-production) which Lionsgate/Summit is releasing domestically on November 1.
Ulbrich was with Digital Domain since its inception in 1993 and was the chief architect of its advertising production business. He also executive produced the Academy Award-winning visual effects for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Titanic, as well as Tron Legacy, Fight Club and Zodiac, among others; music videos for Lady Gaga, Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson; and more than 500 commercials and the computer-generated “hologram” of the late rap star Tupac Shakur for the Coachella Valley Music Festival.
Ulbrich played a key role in Digital Domain’s emergence from bankruptcy (SHOOT, 11/16/12) and purchase by Galloping Horse (which bought a 70 percent stake) and Reliance MediaWorks (which acquired the remaining 30 percent).
Last month, Sun Innovation acquired the parent company of Galloping Horse U.S., thus taking ownership of its 70 percent share of what is now Digital Domain 3.0. Reliance MediaWorks continues to own a minority stake (30 percent) in Digital Domain 3.0 while Galloping Horse also remains in the ownership chain.
Founded in 1992, Sun Innovation is a Hong Kong-based and listed company that recently formed a strategic partnership with Beijing Galloping Horse, a film and TV company in China. With its acquisition of Digital Domain 3.0, Sun Innovation intends to expand its reach in the growing international feature film markets and in the development of new digital media experiences for consumers in entertainment, advertising, cultural and media environments worldwide.
Lucy Walker Made A Searing Documentary About Wildfires In 2021; Now, People May Be More Inclined To Listen
When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, "Bring Your Own Brigade," at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge.
"It was really hard," the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. "I didn't blame people for not wanting to watch a film about the fires in the middle of the pandemic, because it was just too much horror."
And so the film, though acclaimed — it was named one of the 10 best films of the year by the New York Times – didn't reach an audience as large as Walker had hoped, with its urgent display of the human cost of wildfires and its tough, crucial questions for the future.
That could change. Walker thinks people may now be more receptive to her message, given the devastating wildfires that have wrought havoc on Los Angeles itself the past week. Firefighters were preparing on Tuesday to attack new blazes amid warnings that winds combined with severely dry conditions created a " particularly dangerous situation."
"This is probably the moment where it becomes undeniable," she said in an interview.
She added: "It does feel like people are now asking the question that I was asking a few years ago, like, 'Is it safe to live in Los Angeles? And why is this happening, and what can we do about it? And the good news is that there are some things we can do about it. What's tricky is that they're really hard to accomplish."
Documenting the human cost, confronting complacency
In "Bring Your Own Brigade" (available on Paramount+), Walker portrays in sometimes terrifying detail the devastation caused by two wildfires on the same day in 2018, products of the same wind event — the Camp Fire that engulfed the... Read More