Image courtesy of Arcana Studio
Arcana Studio is a Canadian animation studio based in Burnaby, BC that got its start in the comic book publishing industry. CEO Sean O’Reilly founded Arcana in 2003 with a single comic book called Kade. Since then, it has expanded to produce both animated and live-action features.
The team at Arcana agrees that what makes them unique is the freedom to go at their own pace and the communication between departments made possible because they are a relatively small studio.
Arcana Studio has faced many challenges through its evolution.
Moving from comic books to animated and live-action features was a learning curve that required massive changes in technology.
For Corey Jessee, Arcana’s studio asset supervisor, tools like Maya have made that process much easier:
Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid) and its integration with Maya have become an invaluable tool. Clint Gamble, Arcana’s animation director, couldn’t imagine working without it.
“I love Flow Production Tracking. It’s awesome. We can upload things; it goes directly to it. I can give notes, it goes directly to it. You can do draw-overs in Flow Production Tracking and it stays on top. They are making our lives easier.
And when the Covid-19 pandemic forced Arcana’s animation team to work from home – Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid) made it possible to keep production moving. There were other challenges that came from working remotely, like latency. For CEO Sean O’Reilly, latency was a big issue.
Image courtesy of Arcana Studio
While still involved in the ink and paper world of print publishing, Arcana Studio has fully embraced the digital world of animation. Creating and owning their own characters allows Arcana to develop and grow. As well as animation, Arcana is now producing live action feature films based on their own intellectual properties.
Autodesk's products, like Maya, Arnold, and Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid), have given Arcana the flexibility and creative tools they need to thrive in challenging times. Annex Pro also takes care of licensing, something that has become increasingly complex through the years. Working with Annex Pro gives Arcana extra talent and resource to help solve current issues as well as plan for the future. For Sean OReilly, Annex Pro is a key player in their success.
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