Disney will shut digital studio near San Francisco
Before it closes, the complex will continue to be used by Zemeckis and his team to complete production of Mars Needs Moms!
Los Angeles: To further cut costs at its movie studio, The Walt Disney Company said on Friday that it will shut a San Francisco-area facility used to capture the performance of Jim Carrey for his digitally animated character, Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol.
The closure of the facility in Marin County, north of San Francisco, will be completed by January and result in the loss of 450 jobs.
The facility was built by ImageMovers Digital, a company co-founded by A Christmas Carol director Robert Zemeckis and partially owned by Disney. Motion-capture technology in that facility was used to make the movie. Carrey wore sensors as he acted out scenes, and the data were used to recreate his character on the screen.
Before it closes, the complex will continue to be used by Zemeckis and his team to complete production of Mars Needs Moms!, a 3-D movie set for release in March 2011.
"Given today's economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model," Walt Disney Studios president Alan Bergman said.
In a statement, Zemeckis said he was proud of the ImageMovers team and the work it accomplished.
Disney said it hoped to come to a new long-term production deal with Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, including one for a future project called Yellow Submarine. Disney's studio has been paring costs and decreasing its movie slate, most recently putting a halt to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Wedding Banned and Wild Hogs 2.
