Having launched a new company in Vancouver BC this month, Chennai-based visual effects company Basilic Fly Studio, has announced that VFX supervisor Rob Bannister has joined their team. Incorporated as Basilic Fly Studio Canada, the venture is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Indian parent studio. It is their first major investment outside India.
Bannister first became aware of Basilic Fly’s work through Marvel’s Helstrom. He found them ‘great-to-work-with as they not only offered high quality work, but stellar communication throughout the show, making collaboration across the globe very seamless.’
“I look forward to bringing my years of experience and problem solving skills to the table at Basilic Fly Canada and I’m excited about showing clients – old and new, how we can maximize their budgets through careful, early planning; creative problem solving and our artistic depth across both our Canadian and Indian studios,” Bannister said.
Talking about the new member, Basilic Fly Studio founder Balakrishnan Rajarathinam (Bala) said, “Rob is a stellar addition to the BFS family and he will help us to up the creative-ante across both our studios. Rob’s vast experiences and leadership skills are really going to allow our Canadian operations to hit the ground running. As we round out our Vancouver recruitment push, we look forward to offering our clients more in-person collaboration from pre-production through delivery for BC-based productions and beyond.”
“Vancouver BC is perfectly situated to help us better maintain and grow our global client base. Given its proximity to renowned production and post houses on this side of the world, we feel our clients will greatly benefit not only from the creative collaboration, but also from the larger tax credit base that they will be able to claim when working with our Vancouver Studio. Knowing the depths of Rob’s knowledge and his appetite for creative, challenging work, we look forward to supporting Rob and the rest of the Vancouver team as we get underway,” said Basilic Fly Studio board director Yogalakshmi Sundaram (Yoga).
According to Basilic Fly Studio executive producer North America Jennifer Hargreaves, “From our first conversation with Rob, we felt really positive. He has an ability to consider the tasks at hand from many perspectives; taking into account how an approach will impact both the production and post-production teams’ schedules and budgets. He is truly a producer’s dream come true and I’m really looking forward to working with him as we kickstart things in Vancouver.”
Upon graduating from MacKenzie College of Animation at 18, Bannister started his own web design, branding & animation company where he primarily took on TV & music video projects. Then he moved to Vancouver as editor/ compositor for Sepia Films in 2008. From there he was on to CIS, where he worked in Houdini doing crowd simulation on the film Invictus and honed his skills in NUKE, which really began to open things up for him on the work front.
Later he moved to Zoic as a compositor for both TV and feature projects. In 2011, Bannister was brought on at LUX VFX to lead their compositing team, unify workflows with 3D and ensure the quality and consistency of the work coming out of the studio.
In 2016, Bannister moved to CoSA, working on episodics like Gotham, The Walking Dead, Lucifer and features like The Conjuring 2. Through his independent VFX supervision work on both Blue Book Reports S1 and The Order S1, he was able to capitalize on his early involvement on these projects, working directly with showrunners, writers, directors, camera and art departments as well as SPFX and MUFX teams to integrate practical and digital effects, stretching the allotted budgets far beyond the norm.
In 2019, Bannister was working as VFX supervisor on location in the remote reaches of Xinjiang China. Then he went back to Vancouver to work in the same capacity on several projects, including Marvel’s Helstrom, before the Covid shutdown. After a stint with Crafty Apes last Fall, Bannister took some time to be with family back east in Nova Scotia before resuming his independent VFX supervision work this summer and now he begins his new journey with Basilic Fly Studio Canada.