Framestore, the VFX studio that won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for the film The Golden Compass, has appointed James Whitlam as executive producer, Film. Whitlam has earlier worked on the VFX work of various films like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Batman Begins.
His nine-year tenure at Rising Sun Pictures was quite fruitful as he worked on the major ventures of the Harry Potter franchise. His 25 years as a producer has been conducive to supervise various feature film projects. His recent work as senior VFX producer on Peter Berg’s film Deepwater Horizon was his last project before joining Framestore.
Gaumont, the French powerhouse known for producing, co-producing, and distributing films, has its own animation production wing too. Gaumont‘s Paris-based president of Animation, Pierre Belaisch, is exiting the company. Belaisch used to head the company’s European TV animation activities and also previously served as MD of Gaumont Animation.
Axis Animation, Glasgow-based CG studio, has appointed Jon Neill as Head of Lighting, Rendering and Compositing. He has previously worked on several major projects like Jungle Book, Skyfall and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and held senior positions at MPC and Cinesite.