Creative content company Alkemy X is expanding to the West Coast. The company hired Emmy-nominated visual effects veteran Mark Miller to head its VFX and post facility in the L.A. market, which is now open for episodic television work. Established with a long-term plan to serve commercial and feature film clients in the West Coast market, as well as support Alkemy X’s own Original Content Division, projects are already underway at the company’s new South Pasadena location. As EP of visual effects at Alkemy X, Miller will spearhead the new L.A. office and bicoastally preside over all VFX operations of the New York and Philadelphia offices. Miller will have a monthly presence in New York, traveling between offices as projects and client needs dictate, while maintaining his permanent residence in Los Angeles. Miller has executive produced visual effects for award-winning television entertainment properties, including Game of Thrones, True Detective, Limitless, The Walking Dead, Fargo, and Terra Nova. His career includes feature film credits, such as Good Day To Die Hard, Spider-Man, Hellboy, Hugo, Mission: Impossible, The Hunger Games, and Superman Returns. Miller, who has consulted for other visual effects studios over the last few years, is an entrepreneur in the entertainment industry, having grown several companies and VFX departments during his long and storied career. He co-founded Eden FX, the first visual effects company behind the second incarnation of the Star Trek TV series. He went on to spearhead the TV division at Pixomondo. Miller entered the industry by way of an early career in engineering, working at Unitel Video, a large national company where he was eventually promoted to president of the Los Angeles division. In L.A., Alkemy X will occupy a portion of Favilli Studio in South Pasadena. The studio features 5,000 square feet of office and production space with a fully-equipped green screen stage for element shoots and small-scale motion capture. Miller said hiring for the L.A. office is already underway. The plan is to build out a creative team to interface and collaborate with Alkemy X West Coast clients conveniently in person, particularly during the early phases of creative development and strategy. Subsequent workflow will take place as appropriate in all of the Alkemy X offices, including L.A., New York, and Philadelphia. The strategy, he said, is to organically scale talent as needed, and steadily grow in Los Angeles. Alkemy X is currently working on VFX for the upcoming season of Fear The Walking Dead. Other recent and notable credits from the company’s visual effects department include Universal Pictures’ No. 1 box office hit Split from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, as well as a number of TV series, including High Maintenance (HBO); Blindspot (NBC); Frequency (The CW); The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon); Power and Sweetbitter (STARZ). Alkemy X also delivers VFX for commercials, promos and branded content, with recent campaigns for Samsung, GEICO, NBC’s Sunday Night Football, and Julie Taymor’s Broadway revival of M. Butterfly….
Newly launched strategic creative group ATK PLN is amplifying its editorial offerings, forming a strategic alliance with L.A.-based production shop BUTCHER Post. ATK PLN will represent BUTCHER’s full slate of editorial talent in the Texas market, with BUTCHER dually representing ATK PLN’s editorial talent in their markets. The alliance fuses the forward-looking approach both companies are taking to embrace the shifting business models and infrastructures in the commercial production space, focusing on their core creative offerings, with strategic partnerships that offer their clients an extension of services and styles. ATK PLN’s premium design, animation and live action chops will be complemented by the cutting skills of BUTCHER Post’s editors. BUTCHER Post has also adapted to the future of work in the commercial production space. After noticing an increasing trend in clients requesting that editors work out of their office spaces, they made the shift in 2016 to eliminate a brick and mortar location, allowing the flexibility to go directly to their clients on a project-by-project basis, embracing a “Butcher Anywhere” approach that has resonated well with their client base. ATK PLN was launched in February by Reel FX commercial division and former Shilo owner/creative director Jose Sebastian Gomez, who is leading the shop as executive creative director….
