Technicolor Group, the storied visible results, movement graphics and animation firm behind a few of Hollywood’s most memorable movies, is shuttering operations, together with in California.
The corporate is shedding 217 employees and completely closing its studio on Lindblade Avenue, in accordance with a discover filed with California‘s Employment Improvement Division on Feb. 24 .
Technicolor, headquartered in Paris, owns corporations such because the Mill, MPC and Mikros Animation which have operations in Los Angeles County.
The 110-year-old enterprise —which famously introduced colour to the massive display screen — labored on such movie classics as “The Wizard of Oz,” Disney’s 1940 movie “Pinocchio” and “The Lion King.”
Lately, the corporate tried to pivot from its reliance on movie to adapt to the digital revolution. In 2022, Technicolor opened a sprawling campus in Culver Metropolis to deal with the rising demand for bodily results from streaming companies.
However the movie trade has additionally been affected by a number of challenges, such because the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of .
Technicolor Group Chief Govt Caroline Parot informed staff in a memo on Monday that the corporate has been experiencing monetary difficulties, citing the pandemic and writers’ strike in 2023 that lasted 148 days.
“As we have now communicated over the previous months, the Group has been experiencing difficulties linked to quite a lot of components and has not been spared from exterior headwinds,” she wrote within the memo, considered by The Instances.
The corporate, she informed employees, hasn’t been capable of finding new buyers and filed for courtroom “restoration process” earlier than the French Court docket of Justice to offer Technicolor a technique to preserve afloat.
Technicolor Group didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The corporate additionally operates in different main cities all through North America, Europe and the USA, engaged on media, leisure, promoting and video games.
In the UK, Technicolor’s enterprise has been positioned in “administration,” a authorized course of for corporations that aren’t in a position to repay their money owed and 440 employees have been made redundant, the reported.
Some studios have discovered different lifelines as Technicolor edges towards the brink of collapse. , which beforehand reported on the memo, stated that visible results artists on the Mill are teaming up with Dream Machine FX on a brand new enterprise referred to as Arc Inventive.
“It goes with out saying, the previous few days have been crammed with feelings: shock, anger, sorrow, concern, and in the end, resolve,” artists who beforehand labored on the Mill informed Selection in an announcement. “Whereas the Mill as we all know it has shut its doorways, its spirit, its ardour, and its legacy dwell on by means of its superb and gifted folks.”
Mikros Animation, Dream Machine FX and the Mill didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Technicolor Group has gone by means of a number of management adjustments since its begin in 1915. The corporate has greater than 14,600 staff, in accordance with estimates primarily based on LinkedIn information.
Technicolor proceedings in 2020. Since then, it has bought off components of its enterprise, together with its postproduction unit for almost $36.5 million in 2021.
