EXCLUSIVE: Californian VFX studio Whiskytree is opening a post-production facility in Georgia.
The new office opened earlier this month and more than doubles the size of the company. It is located outside of Atlanta, and recruitment for “dozens” of artist and technician roles is underway.
The Whiskytree Southern Corporation will work in tandem with the original San Rafael studio, with work shared through the cloud. The studio expects this to add new film and TV projects to its slate and is accepting new work.
“Georgia is a global hub for the entertainment industry, thanks to incredible support from the state, and a growing infrastructure that can handle some of the largest film and television productions in the world,” said Jonathan Harb, CEO and founder of Whiskytree. “We had to expand to keep up with the demand for our services, and opening a new location in Georgia that will work directly with productions shooting there was the obvious choice.”
Harb, who launched Whiskytree in 2007 along with several other former Industrial Light and Magic execs, said the studio will meet “extreme” demand for more post-production space in Georgia, and allow more projects shot in the state to stay in the state, accessing local incentives and improving coordination between local productions and VFX teams.
According to Whiskytree, content spend has risen from $135M to 4.1B, an increase of nearly 3,000%. It noted that in December alone, there were more than 12 movies filming there.
Whiskytree has a client list including Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Netflix, Skydance and Apple Studios. The studio is known for VFX work on Star Wars: Andor, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Foundation, The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, multiple Hunger Games films and the first three Thor features. It’s currently working on Apple TV+ miniseries Master of the Air, which Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are producing.
