John Hughes, one of the co-founders of the Academy Award winning studio Rhythm and Hues, is all set to launch a considerably large scale VFX studio in China.
Rhythm and Hues won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1995 for their contribution in Babe. They were also the VFX force behind the 2012’s critically acclaimed film Life of Pi directed by Ang Lee.
Although, soon after being nominated for the Academy Awards for Life of Pi, the company filed bankruptcy. But recently, John Hughes has completed a deal with administrative committee of the Beijing Economic-Technological Development about initiating a new VFX studio at the Daxing district in the suburbs of Beijing coupled with a visual art centre.
Reportedly, Hughes has been learning how to speak the Chinese language, with already having chosen a Chinese name for himself, Zhang Chi.
Hughes has been known to be a promoter of the Asian VFX industry, with Rhythm and Hues formerly having studios in Malaysia and India. His new studio in China will not only focus on visual effect production but visual product development, virtual reality related products, training etc. This move of Hughes has been facilitated in order to increase the VFX fraternity in China and drive various international projects to the Asian land.
The visual art studio will be co-founded by Hughes’ Beijing enterprise and venture capital firm FTC Global. Both the studios will be named after Hughes as his former company Rhythm and Hues holds an integral past of VFX and animation work in films like Alvin and the Chipmunks, X-Men: First Class, Garfield, Batman Forever and so on.
The motive seems to be about bringing the best of VFX technologies from the west and churn out Chinese films which will do really well in the international market. Thus, creating an ecosystem for both the industries to thrive.