SAN RAFAEL, CA — A group of artists and technologists whose credits include creating Davy Jones for Pirates of the Caribbean and the Transformers have launched a new studio in Marin County, CA. Creature Art and Mechanics Digital (www.creatureartandmechanics.com) was founded by partners Scott C. Smith, Timothy Naylor, Andrea Maiolo and Chad Vernon, and is headquartered at 32Ten Studios in San Rafael — a historic facility originally occupied by George Lucas’s ILM.

  

CAMD's Andrea Maiolo, Chad Vernon, Tim Naylor, and Scott C. Smith.

“Our mission is to facilitate producers, directors, and visual effect supervisors into bringing their digital characters and creatures to life, using radically new methods and technologies,” say the partners in a statement. “We believe that the time has come to rethink and modernize the creation of CG digital characters, while dramatically reducing costs and increasing efficiency. This means a lower budget for the creation of digital characters in feature films, animation, and even videogames, while giving directors, producers, heads of studios, etc., direct access to the design and creation process.”

 

The studio will use proprietary technologies to achieve previously unattainable production pipeline tricks. Its creature shop will hand off characters and creatures to a studio or its vendors, and support the production of that asset through to final compositing, if necessary.

 

Collectively, the founding partners of CAMD have worked on Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3, Transformers, Disney’s A Christmas Carol, and 20 other major films. They also contributed to Academy Award winning work in VFX for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and helped bring to the screen the lizard in Rango.