Ian Unterreiner has been appointed president and partner of VisualCreatures (VC), a virtual production studio recently acquired by the Russo brothers’ company, AGBO. (Anthony and Joe Russo’s directorial credits include Avengers: Endgame.) VC, which specializes in real-time applications in visual effects and animation, opened its new studio equipped with a motion capture enabled sound stage at AGBO’s downtown Los Angeles’ creative campus.
Unterreiner’s appointment will push VC’s research and development deeper into virtual production workflows and AI solutions to provide AGBO and its production partners world-class visuals using efficient, state-of-the-art filmmaking techniques. Unterreiner will report to AGBO and collaborate with VC co-founders Ryan McNeely and John Cranston on innovation, strategy and creative deployment.
“Ian joins our team with an abundance of thoughtful leadership and vision. His passion for forward thinking perfectly aligns with VC and AGBO’s common goal of making the very best work with the very best people. He will be an incredible partner on our continued path towards creating innovating workflows and game changing content,” said McNeely.
Unterreiner said, “Having spent 13 years at Zoic, whose life blood is innovation, joining Ryan, John and the AGBO team to advance virtual production efforts was a natural progression. I’m both humbled and privileged to play a role in guiding VisualCreatures’ evolution, whose growth potential is immeasurable.”
AGBO COO Nick Anglewicz said of Unterreiner, “He embodies the perfect balance of artist champion, futurist and business pragmatist. Ryan and John are animals of innovation and storytelling, especially on the frontier of virtual production. Having these capabilities in-house is a huge boom for AGBO’s creative process and slate, and a perfect complement to our business strategy.”
Unterreiner brings deep business and creative strategy to the role with nearly two decades of postproduction experience having most recently served as EVP at Emmy-winning entertainment company Zoic Studios. While at Zoic, Unterreiner handled corporate strategy and studio oversight across the company’s Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver locations.
At Zoic Studios, he fused his wide breadth of visual effects and business development expertise to curate top creative talent and generate innovative methods that enhanced the company’s global VFX pipeline. Over his career, he has produced large scale projects in film and television for top studios including Netflix, Marvel, Paramount, Apple and Warner Brothers. Unterreiner started his career assisting James Cameron during principal photography and postproduction of the feature film Titanic.
