Russo Brothers’ AGBO announced that Ian Unterreiner has been appointed as president and partner of their virtual production studio VisualCreatures (VC). The recently acquired company, which specialises 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 company co-founders Ryan McNeely and John Cranston on innovation, strategy and creative deployment.
VisualCreatures co-founder Ryan McNeely said, “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.”
Unterreiner shared, “Having spent 13 years at Zoic, whose lifeblood is innovation, joining McNeely, Cranston 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 VisualCreatues’ evolution, whose growth potential is immeasurable.”
AGBO COO Nick Anglewic commented, “We couldn’t be more excited to have Unterreine join the AGBO family as a leader of VC. 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 post-production experience having most recently served as executive vice president 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 post-production of the feature film Titanic.
