VFX IN ASIA: BOOM TIME

By CHRIS McGOWAN

“The Asian VFX industry is experiencing a meteoric rise driven by a confluence of powerful forces,” says Merzin Tavaria, Co-Founder and President, Global Production and Operations for DNEG. “The region possesses a vast pool of highly skilled and technically adept VFX artists, a critical foundation for producing top-tier visual effects.”

Jay Seung Jaegal, VFX Supervisor for Seoul-based Dexter Studios, adds, “I believe that the Asian region will become a new core base for the content and VFX industries in the future. As Asian VFX studios increasingly participate in global projects, their presence is expanding. Although they have already proven significant competitiveness and potential, I think there is still immense room for growth.”

Asia is playing an evolving role in shaping the global VFX ecosystem. Key regions and cities driving the growth of the Asian VFX industry include India, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and Singapore, with Bangkok and Vietnam beginning to gain traction. Homegrown VFX studios like Dexter are on the rise, and multinational firms with VFX branches in Asia include DNEG, BOT VFX, Framestore, ILM, Digital Domain, Rotomaker Studios, Mackevision (Accenture Song), The Third Floor, Tau Films, Method Studios, MPC and Outpost VFX.

South Korea has risen to become one of the most important Asian VFX hubs, and the trajectory of Dexter, founded in 2012, is one of the most impressive in South Korea. Jaegal says, “As of the first half of 2024, the company has grown into a group with six subsidiaries connected. Dexter’s headquarters alone employs about 330 people, including around 200 VFX artists. Currently, Dexter Studios is active as a comprehensive content studio with an all-in-one system covering content planning, development, production, post-production, DI and sound. We are also expanding our business areas to new technology fields such as immersive content, AR/VR/XR and the metaverse.”

Along the way, Dexter has provided visual effects for several noteworthy films, including Parasite (2019), which captured four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Jaegal comments, “Parasite is a significant film in Korean cinema history as it was the first film to win an Academy Award. It marked a pivotal moment that showcased the excellence and prestige of Korean films to the world. Notably, Parasite is famous for its invisible VFX. Many people think that little VFX was used, but in reality, much of it was created after filming, including the two-story house of Mr. Park, the driving scenes and the neighborhood where Ki-Taek’s family lives. Our company designed the VFX and DI [Digital Intermediate], and our subsidiary, Livetone, handled the sound, making us an all-rounder in post-production.”

Dexter also provided VFX for Space Sweepers (2021), “which holds a special meaning as a Korean-style SF [sci-fi] film,” Jaegal explains. “It successfully [put together] a unique story involving space, the spaceship Victory and robots, which had not been commonly attempted in Korea at that time. We also handled all three post-production parts of this film. I think it redefined the standards for the space/SF genre that can be produced in Korea. Based on this experience, we [went on] to handle KSF-VFX for Netflix’s JUNG_E, the Alienoid series, and The Moon.” Recently, Dexter has worked on Knights of the Zodiac [with DNEG], YuYu Hakusho with Scanline VFX and Japan’s Digital Frontier, Gyeongseong Creature for Netflix and Parasyte: The Grey.

Gulliver Studios handled the VFX for Squid Game, winner of the 2022 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode, which was among the six total Emmys garnered by the series. Squid Game VFX Supervisor Cheong Jai-hoon notes, “After Squid Game was released on Netflix, it was gratifying and meaningful to see that viewers worldwide loved it, especially considering that they couldn’t tell which parts were created with VFX.”

Gulliver Studios is a VFX company (also called C-Jes Gulliver Studios) established in 2019 in Goyang by C-Jes Studio. The latter “manages actors, singers, and K-pop artists, and is involved in the planning and production of movies, dramas, and musicals,” notes the firm. At the end of 2022, Gulliver Studios and C-Jes Studio merged to become a comprehensive content group that extends its scope from planning and producing theatrical films and OTT [Over-The-Top] content to post-production VFX.

Looking at the growth of VFX in South Korea, Jai-hoon explains, “Around 2015, there was a notable increase in the production of large-scale fantasy and action films within China, yet there weren’t many proficient VFX companies in China at the time. As a result, the majority of VFX work during that period was handled by Korean companies. As Korean VFX companies gained significant experience through working on various Chinese films, it led to substantial growth in the Korean VFX industry.”

As the volume of work in Korea increased exponentially, “Korean VFX companies established satellite companies in countries like Vietnam and China, where labor costs were lower, and they also outsourced a significant portion of their work to India and Ukraine. As a result, the VFX industry in Asia experienced growth during this period,” Jai-hoon remarks. “By the late 2010s, the Chinese film industry faced a slowdown, which also halted the growth of the Korean VFX market. However, in the 2020s, the production of Asian content by platforms like Netflix and Disney+ revitalized the industry. Successes such as Squid Game and [prior to that] Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite [also] energized the global OTT production scene in Asia.”

Jai-hoon adds, “Recently, there have been talks about Netflix increasing its investment in Korean content production and, following Disney+, even Amazon Prime is outsourcing a lot of work to Korean VFX companies. This signifies that the level of Korean VFX has already been recognized worldwide. Additionally, some global VFX companies like Scanline, Eyeline Studios and The Mill have recently entered the Korean market, gradually increasing their investment in Korean artists’ potential. As a result, existing Korean VFX companies are building pipelines according to Hollywood’s VFX pipeline and standard production processes, different from the Korean system. Also, Korean artists with experience from abroad are gradually returning to Korean VFX companies.”

Westworld VFX in Goyang, Korea, was established in 2019 and has about 200 employees. Westworld handled the VFX for the Netflix sci-fi series The Silent Sea, the first large-scale project in Korea to use virtual production and LED walls. Asked about Asia’s VFX growth, Managing Director Koni Jung responds, “It’s difficult to say exactly, but the growth of young artists and the entry of global OTT platforms into Asia seem to be factors driving growth. [And] as Korean films and series achieve global success; an increasing number of overseas projects are being filmed and post-produced in Korea. Honestly, isn’t it because it costs less than the North American market?”

Wooyoung Kim, Director of Global Business at Seoul-based VA Corporation, comments, “As the investment of OTT platforms in the Asian market expanded during the pandemic, the budget for content rose significantly, and many content projects [were] planned that [could] expand expression in a technical direction. This led to successful outcomes for VFX companies in each country, allowing them them to showcase the technical skills that they may not have had in their home markets.” VA successfully launched a Netflix series called Goodbye Earth, participated in Netflix Japan’s project YuYu Hakusho in 2023 and is working on the movie New Generation War: Reawakened Man.

In India, DNEG has teams of thousands of talented artists spread across 10 locations (including Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chandigarh), encompassing both DNEG and ReDefine studios, according to DNEG’s Tavaria. “This strategic network allows for seamless collaboration with our Western counterparts on every DNEG and ReDefine film and episodic VFX and animation project. We’re incredibly proud of the vital role that India plays in DNEG’s global success.” Tavaria continues, “Our talented Indian teams play a pivotal role in all our top-tier international projects, from feature films to episodic television series. Just to name a few, our Indian teams have recently brought their magic to Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie, among others, showcasing their versatility across genres. Their expertise has also been instrumental in projects like Oppenheimer, NYAD, Masters of the Air, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Borderlands and many others.”

Tavaria notes, “Many Asian governments are actively nurturing the industry’s growth. Take India’s AVGC Promotion Task Force, for example. This initiative recognizes the significant contribution VFX makes to the economy and aims to propel India further onto the global stage. By establishing a national curriculum focused on VFX skills development, the Task Force paves the way for India to produce even more world-class content.”

Larger Asian studios are staying ahead of the curve by rapidly embracing cutting-edge technologies. This ensures their VFX offerings and capabilities remain at the forefront of the global landscape. Tavaria says, “This confluence of a skilled workforce and a commitment to technological innovation has solidified Asia’s position as a major player in the ever-evolving world of VFX.”

About DNEG, Tavaria comments, “We’re continually working hard to refine our global pipeline to open the door to a new era of creative collaboration across our locations. This allows our Western studios and Asian teams to work seamlessly together to push the boundaries of what’s possible in VFX.”

Streaming has been another factor in the Asian VFX rise. Tavaria explains, “The rise of streaming, along with a flourishing domestic film market, has fueled a surge in high-quality content, presenting a thrilling opportunity for the Asian VFX industry. This explosion of content demands ever more exceptional visual effects for Asian audiences that are hungry for stories that reflect their own cultures and aesthetics.”

BOT VFX has four locations in India (Chennai, Coimbatore, Pune and Hyderabad) and one in Atlanta. “Our total team size is 800,” says BOT VFX CEO and Founder Hitesh Shah. The firm has been working on many high-profile projects, including Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Fallout, 3 Body Problem, Shogun, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Knuckles, Civil War, The Boys 4, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

The size of the talent pool has been growing significantly in India thanks to nearly two decades of RPM work that motivated many new entrants to join the industry. According to Shah, “What was a pool of several hundred artists in 2005 is in the tens of thousands today. Also, there is now a large base of training institutions that continually feed new talent into the ecosystem. From the large pool of talent, a portion has had the skills and the ambition to fill highly specialized and technical roles required to build full-service facilities.”

About the move to provide full-service VFX for Western clients, Shah comments, “That shift is from three segments. First, those facilities that have been historically providing full-service VFX to the Indian domestic market are turning part of their attention to Western productions. Second, independent facilities that have historically been point-services providers – for example, RPM – roto, paint, matchmove – are shifting towards full-service VFX. Finally, even large multinational VFX companies that have set up a footprint in India initially for point-services support [are] leveraging more Indian talent towards the full VFX value chain.”

Shah states, “For India specifically, the growth of the VFX industry is driven by the strong value proposition it offers to Western productions in the form of three compelling components: strong cost advantage, a large talent pool and a broadly English-speaking talent pool that has an affinity with Western content.”

He adds, “Despite strong tax incentives in other global regions and trends toward rising talent costs in India, the overall cost advantage of India is still compelling. It seems most Western productions implicitly, or sometimes explicitly, expect their VFX vendors to bake in the lower costs of getting RPM work done in India into their bids. Finally, the affinity to Western content and English has had a subtle but notable impact on VFX growth in India. Many young artists are bi-cultural and equally motivated to work on Western content as they are in working on Indian domestic films. There is a swifter cross-pollination and travel between India-based artists and team members in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.”

In addition, VFX has gained prominence in Indian content, streaming and theatrical. “The availability and affordability of VFX in the content creator’s toolbox have opened up whole new genres and the ability to tell epic Indian tales that were out of budget reach previously,” Shah says. “Keep in mind that India is not just one monolithic content market, but multiple mature regional markets with their own vibrant histories of storytelling, all of whom have taken a fondness towards what VFX can enable. The fact that the Indian VFX market is well poised to serve both Western content, as well as the expanding Indian domestic content, gives it a firm footing in the global VFX ecosystem.”

Peter Riel, Owner and CEO of Basecamp VFX, a small studio founded in 1996 and based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He argues that it’s important to understand how the SEA (Southeast Asian) market works. Riel says, “Each nation here is quite sovereign both in terms of language and culture. While it’s easy to quickly take a glance and see the various countries’ similarities, it’s a mistake to think they all share the same cultural sentiments that perhaps the Western world does to films made in the U.S. As an example, one would expect Malaysian movies to be popular in Indonesia and vice-versa, due to their similar language and culture, but that’s far from the case. I do still think there is tremendous value to be found in SEA VFX. The artists here are extremely dedicated and are used to working fast and efficiently.”

Kraken Kollective CEO Dayne Cowan has over 30 years of experience in the VFX business, worked with DNEG and other major VFX firms, managed VHQ Media’s feature film divisions in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and worked for Amazon Studios South East Asia as the Post Production Lead for Local Original Movies. Earlier this year, Cowan founded a new VFX firm in Singapore. “Kraken Kollective is a next-generation post-production and visual effects management company,” he says. “It leverages the cost and skill benefits of Asia for foreign productions that would like to have the work done here but are unfamiliar with business environments, cultures and capabilities locally. Asia is a massive diverse region with so many countries. Working here may appear straightforward, but there are many unseen challenges that we help to navigate. The skill of the talent [here] continues to grow and develop, almost at an exponential rate. When combined with technology advancements like generative AI and the sheer size of the talent pool here, it represents a serious value add.”

Cowan comments, “Parts of Asia have long been known for handling the entry-level work like roto, matchmove, paint work. As new technology changes the shape of things, I am seeing smaller companies emerge with stronger, specialized skill sets. I think people forget that nearly 4.5 billion people live in Asia, and with a rapidly developing talent base, it will play a huge role going forward in production and post-production. Broadly speaking, I believe we are looking at a boom time for Asian VFX.”