Multi-award-winning animation and VFX studio and creators of original kids’ content Jellyfish Pictures, has announced the opening of its new facility in Sheffield. The new studio is the result of the company’s outgrowth of its current location following the expansion to the North of England less than a year ago.
Opening its Northern arm in May 2019, Jellyfish Pictures has witnessed rapid growth in both its Southern and Northern UK offices over the course of the past year. The newest studio will house the burgeoning animation team, which has more than doubled in size in the past three months.
Commenting on the expansion, Jellyfish Pictures CEO Phil Dobree said, “Recognising Sheffield as an area that held great potential for growth in the VFX and Animation industries led to the opening of Jellyfish Sheffield early last year. It’s an incredibly proud moment for me now, to announce our further expansion in the North of England. For it to come about so drastically and quickly, only confirms the hunger for a larger Creative Industries presence outside of London, of which we are committed to cultivating.”
The swift expansion is a testament to the innovative virtual technologies Jellyfish Pictures has been pioneering since 2014 and comes shortly after the company’s announcement, made in December 2019, where it became the World’s largest virtual VFX and Animation studio.
As with all other Jellyfish Pictures locations, there is no hardware housed onsite in the new Sheffield studio, situated in the city centre within the state-of-the-art Wizu Workspace. Operating in a completely PC over IP environment all technology and pipeline is housed in a centrally based co-location in Hayes. The studio is able to virtualise its distributed workstations through Teradici’s remote visualisation solution; allowing for total flexibility and scalability.
Dobree added, “None of this would have been able to happen without Jellyfish Pictures’ continued investment in pushing the boundaries of virtual technologies. The ability to ramp up as needed and easily move to a bigger facility has been of invaluable worth. Casting off the constraints of our on-premise infrastructure has allowed us to not only remain agile and scaleable when taking on projects, but also allows us to put talent first. This technology has enabled us to reach new heights, and I can’t wait to see where the next steps take us.”
The team working out of Jellyfish Pictures’ Sheffield studio is being overseen by Animation director Kevin Spruce, with a Hollywood animated feature film currently in-production.