The Artery (formerly The Artery VFX) has named Ronen Tanchum to serve as creative and technical director who will head the company’s newly launched VR/AR division. The announcement of his addition was made by Deborah Sullivan, The Artery’s EP/managing director.
Prior to joining The Artery, Tanchum produced complex FX setups and overseen digital tools development for such recent blockbuster features as Deadpool, Transformers, The Amazing Spider-Man, Happy Feet 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Wolverine.
Recent projects for which The Artery has created visuals include the Sony Pictures Classics film Norman starring Richard Gere; the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards; the new Netflix TV series “The Get Down”; and social media imagery for Pepsi.
Given the rapidly burgeoning demand for virtual reality and augmented reality content from major brands and creators of filmed entertainment content around the globe, The Artery sees an enormous new potential market, worldwide, for the company’s development of original content in VR & AR on behalf of a diverse range of clients, prompting the formation of its new division.
“VR today stands at just the tip of the iceberg,” says Tanchum. “Before VR came along, we were just observers, and controlled our worlds through a mouse and a keyboard. Through the VR medium, humans become active participants in the virtual world – we get to step into our own imaginations with a direct link to our brains for the first time, experiencing the first impressions of a virtual world. As creators, VR offers us a very powerful tool by which to present a unique new experience.”
Tanchum added, “We inform our clients that VR shouldn’t be created just because it’s ‘cool.’ The new VR platform should be used to play an integral part of the storyline itself – a well crafted VR experience should embellish and complement the story. We pride ourselves in our ‘story first’ approach to this new platform.”
