Latest news with #TheMill
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dustin Lynch to perform at the Mill in Terre Haute
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — A country artist with eight number-one singles, four top-five albums and 4.5 billion global streams is coming to The Mill in Terre Haute this August. Since his debut, Dustin Lynch has established a reputation as one of country music's most dynamic performers, blending traditional country roots with a modern edge. Lynch is best known for his standout tracks 'Small Town Boy,' 'Ridin' Roads' and 'Thinking About You.' Micro wrestling and MINIKISS coming to The Mill 'His energetic live shows and smooth vocals have made him a favorite among fans nationwide,' said The Mill. Lynch is set to perform at The Mill on August 8, as part of the Hoosier Lottery Concert Series. Tickets will go on sale June 6 at 10 a.m. and are available to purchase at Ticket prices will range from $75 for VIP Standing Pit, $55 for VIP (seats allowed) and $35 for General Admission (seats allowed). For more information about this performance or any other events scheduled at The Mill, visit their website. Taylor Swift tribute band set for June show at The Mill Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Technicolor Bankruptcy: Framestore Adds MPC Supervisors; Mikros India Talent Joins Cinesite's Assemblage
Industry animation and VFX studios are continue to announce hires from units of the former Technicolor, which collapsed in February amid financial difficulties. Paris-headquartered Technicolor was the parent company of VFX giant MPC, commercial VFX studio The Mill, Mikros Animation and Technicolor Gaming. It's closure affected thousands of artists around the world. Among the recent deals, Rodeo FX acquired Mikros Animation's Paris and Montreal studios. More from Variety Technicolor Bankruptcy: Thinkingbox's The Heist Hires Band of Creatives from The Mill and Expands Services Technicolor Bankruptcy: TransPerfect Acquires MPC and The Mill's France Operations Technicolor Bankruptcy: Rodeo FX Acquires Mikros Animation Framestore has expanded the creative leadership at its London headquarters with the addition of VFX supervisor Patrick Ledda and animation supervisor Daniel Blacker, who come from London-headquartered MPC. Blacker recently worked as animation supervisor on Barry Jenkins' 'Mufasa: The Lion King' for Disney and Ledda's credits as a VFX supervisor include Disney's live action adaptation of 'The Little Mermaid.' Framestore's current work includes Brad Pitt racing drama 'FI' for Apple TV+ and Universal's upcoming 'How to Train Your Dragon.' Meanwhile Cinesite group's partner animation and VFX studio in Asia, Assemblage Entertainment, added key talent from Mikros Animation's former India base. 'Mikros India's DNA is now an integral part of Assemblage, and this isn't just about bringing in talent; it's about continuing our shared commitment to storytelling, craftsmanship, and passion for delivering world-class animation,' said Assemblage CEO Arjun Madhavan. 'We are thrilled to welcome this incredibly talented core team to the Assemblage family. We have been, are, and continue to be long-term champions of the 'India' story. This addition significantly bolsters our already impressive roster and will allow us to further elevate the quality of our artistry and solidify our position as a versatile studio with a growing portfolio in both animation and VFX.' The new hires in India include creative director Sean Mullen, head of production technology Siddharth Kumar, animation director Sanamani Singh, animation supervisor Prathik Gopinath, animation supervisor Sujit Das, animation supervisor Rahul Mishra, animation lead Selvan T, animation lead Shiladitya Gupta, CG supervisor Naresh Gunda and producer Mahendran Loganathan. Mikros Animation India recently contributed to the PAW Patrol movie franchise and DreamWorks' 'Orion and the Dark.' Assemblage recently completed animated sports comedy 'Sneaks' and Netflix fantasy series 'Wolf King.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VFX Leaders Weigh Potential of Forming a Global Trade Association and Gauge Impact of AI on the Workforce
Asserting that visual effects companies are 'still abused' and 'taken advantage of,' industry luminary Scott Ross, whose four decades in the industry included co-founding Digital Domain and serving as an exec at George Lucas' companies including Industrial Light & Magic warned, 'if it's not changed, we'll continue to see companies go out of business and creative, wonderful people be unemployed.' Ross was direct as he shared his views on the potential of forming a global trade association (a subject that isn't a new one but has been back on the minds of many in today's volatile business climate and in the wake of the collapse of Technicolor), as well as the 'elephant in the room,' AI, during a panel at the FMX (Film & Media Exchange) confab, which wrapped this weekend in Stuttgart, Germany. He started the panel, moderated by veteran entertainment and tech exec Dave Gouge, by admitting to the audience 'you're not going to like me because I'm actually going to tell the truth.' More from Variety Producer Chris DeFaria on Creator Economy and Strategy Behind Startup Chronicle Studios: 'We're Trying to Invert the Development Process' Technicolor Bankruptcy: Framestore Adds MPC Supervisors; Mikros India Talent Joins Cinesite's Assemblage Technicolor Bankruptcy: Thinkingbox's The Heist Hires Band of Creatives from The Mill and Expands Services The largely non-union VFX industry has the Visual Effects Society, an honorary society, but not a trade association and amid the VFX industries struggles, it's a model that has been reexamined. 'I was always a proponent of trade associations,' Ross said, though he added that he is unsure if today there is a clear path. 'One of the problems that I saw with the people running the VFX companies is fear sort of stopped them from going to the clients and saying, 'we're mad as hell and we're not gonna to take it anymore.' So I thought a trade association, if we signed up most of the majors, could provide the ability to be able to have leverage' in changing what many view as a broken business model. 'My concern is that a lot of the majors are owned by the studios,' he continued, citing as examples that Netflix bought Scanline and Disney owns ILM. 'If they own the [VFX companies], it's in the studio's interest not to change the business model. … The ability to have leverage that I thought years ago might have gone away, and so I don't know if a trade association would work at this point, but I think it would be a shot worth taking.' Similar to Ross' point, panelist David Li, CEO of Dream Machine FX, a collective for VFX brands Important Looking Pirates, Fin, Zero VFX, Mavericks VFX, and ARC Creative (which it launched in February with a group of talent formerly of Technicolor's The Mill) noted, 'every industry in the world has [a trade association]. I think there's a substantial opportunity for advocacy and collaboration. 'What I will say is that it feels like different studios play by different rules in the visual effects industry, that is probably the bigger driver of the absence of one,' he added, saying that should the industry come together to drive change, 'everyone needs to self-enforce that.' Li (who reported during the panel that Dream Machine has been 'profitable every single year') concluded the trade association discussion with a pledge. 'I do think it is the right thing to do,' he said. 'If you started a trade association, we would certainly join, Dream Machine, I would commit that to everyone here. And I think you're right, shared advocacy I think would be very beneficial.' During the last couple years, some VFX practitioners have taken steps to join labor union IATSE, including in-house VFX workers at Marvel and Walt Disney Pictures. But Ross warned that to achieve the benefits of unionization, it would need to be an international union. He related that IATSE covers Canada and the U.S. and estimated that it costs about 20% more to run a union company. 'And so if my pricing increases by 20% [and there's] a non-union shop, and they're located in London or located in India, I'm hurting myself.' Ross also spoke frankly about his concerns surrounding the notion of AI as a tool for creatives. 'Having run large visual effects companies, the majority of the staff of the visual effects workers were actually not core creative people. There was a group of people, let's say 15 or 20% of a staff of 500 or 1000 that actually were … creative, but tertiary creative and secondary creative at best.' He added that 'they were taking direction from a core creative person, the director, and a secondary creative person' such as a visual effects supervisor, art director or animation director. 'But I think a lot of the community takes this whole 'I'm an artist' thing to a level that we're fooling ourselves,' he warned. 'Many people within a visual effects company are actually putting tires and brakes and fenders on a car. They are not designing cars. And having to try to transition my life from being a person who ran a visual effects company or two to being a producer and coming up with creative and writing screenplays and developing screenplays, it's a quantum leap. 'At the end of the day, at least the clients that I work with, they wanted quality [VFX] work. The best there was. They wanted it on time, and they wanted it cheap,' Ross continued. 'When AI winds up becoming a really substantive force, I wonder about what that will do to the visual effects workforce.' Li was more optimistic, suggesting that creativity is becoming all the more important. 'We've done a lot of research into AI, and what we've found is that if 100 is the percentage it needs to be, in terms of, you know, quality, to go from zero to 50, it takes, like, nothing. … And to go from 80 to 85 it takes, you know, 300 [people] and 300 graphics cards, and every step of the way just becomes incrementally harder.' Li predicted opportunities, 'but I think that will only enhance those in this industry who truly have a great deal of creativity, artistry and a very special eye.' 'I agree with him,' Ross replied, stating that creative people 'will be more in demand than ever. However, that's a very small portion of what the overall manufacturing process is for visual effects.' Ross concluded this thought be reminding the audience that AI is developing at a rapid pace, 'it's clunky and it has problems today, but it also is the fastest learning mother that is out there. And so what we're looking at today will be different in three months, in a year, in three years.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Charming overlooked town surrounded by animal-filled meadows is day trip heaven
Few towns can boast a mummified cat and the decapitated head of an Archbishop among their tourist attractions. Fewer still were home to one of Britain's greatest painters, and are surrounded by ancient commonland where cows freely pasture. Sudbury is a beautiful town with a rich industrial and cultural history, yet like many of the sweet settlements in East Anglia, it suffers from its location. 'We're on the way to nowhere here. No one comes to Sudbury by accident,' a volunteer in Gainsborough's House Museum tells me as we admire the gallery's latest exhibition - a selection of 18th-century masterpieces borrowed from Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath. Sudbury's problem is that it's very much at the end of the line. The Gainsborough Line to be specific. You'll have to take the 50-minute train from London Liverpool Street to Marks Tey and change onto a three-carriage trundler, which emerges from leafy cuttings to ride high above the pastoral beauty of the Stour Valley on a 32-arch viaduct (the second largest brick-built structure in England) before terminating in Sudbury. It also finds itself competing with its neighbours in the informal 'great beauties of Suffolk' rankings. Seven miles up the road is Lavenham, Britain's best preserved medieval village where rickety houses dyed pink with pigs blood limewash line the streets. Over on the coast the pastel colours of Aldeburgh sit above a wide East Anglian pebble beach. The most direct competition comes 15 miles down the River Stour in Flatford, where John Constable painted The Hay Wain. Today the white mill that inspired the painting remains as it did in the early 19th century, like much of Constable Country does as it merges into Gainsborough territory while you make your way back west along the Stour River to Sudbury. Approached by foot, the town could exist at any point in the last thousand years, thanks to the meadow's commonland status which have kept this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty a haven for moorhen, field mice, collared dove and, as my niece kept pointing out, 'ducks!' On a sunny day a table up on The Mill's terrace is the best place to sit and watch the wildlife, the cattle roaming and the toddlers toddling by the water. When the sun is shining is also the best time to visit Gainsborough's House, due to the way the light bounces around its spacious galleries, filled, of course, with the artist's work, but also modern pieces responding to Thomas by the likes of Royal Academician Katherine Jones. After looking around, you could do worse than a cup of tea beneath the branches in the museum's garden. Other places in the town to enjoy a bite include vegan joint Cradle, brunch specialists Painters at the Angel and, as everyone I met kept recommending, The Henny Swan. The 17th-century pub is an hour's walk out of town along the Stour and rewards those who make the journey with a riverside garden and an esteemed Ploughman's. 'Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,' Ratty once opined to Moley in A.A. Milne's Wind in the Willows, and he is right. Happily, to this end, both the Henny and the Sudbury Boat House are on hand with cheap rowing boats, paddle boards, and kayak options, which can be used to travel between Sudbury's riverside pubs. Once you've done messing about on boats it'll be time to get down to the serious business of Sudbury's second and third most popular tourist attractions - the mummified cat and the head. The poor moggy is entombed in a glass cabinet at the Mill, where she was found during a conversion in 1971. It's likely that the cabinet had been there for 300 years, in line with an old Suffolk tradition that saw live cats buried in the foundations of buildings to ward off witches, warlocks, and fires. The head is arguably less sad but more appointment viewing. Simon of Sudbury was another local lad done good, the wise young man working his way up from Rector of Wickhambrook to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 14th century. Unfortunately, he took his seat and the role of Lord Chancellor just as the Government decided to pay off the King's huge war debts with a poll tax. In came the revolting peasants from the Home Counties, and off came Simon's head. Before the spike he was impaled on was used to hold up the later defeated People's Champion Wat Tyler, Simon's head was spirited away back to his hometown and tucked away in St Gregory's Church. Today, if you ask the caretaker nicely, they might get it out of storage and give you a look.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Final Days of Technicolor: Inside a Band of Employees' 72-Hour Race to Launch New Company ARC Creative (EXCLUSIVE)
A month ago, on Friday, Feb. 21, Technicolor began to alert employees that it was in dire financial trouble and could (and did) begin to shut down that Monday. The stunning collapse of the iconic century-old company sent shockwaves through the industry, affecting its brands and thousands of employees around the world, as well as their customers. Paris-headquartered Technicolor had reorganized several times in recent years and when it closed it was the parent company of VFX giant MPC, commercial VFX studio The Mill, Mikros Animation and Technicolor Gaming. None were headquartered in the U.S. but all maintained either domestic studio operations or points of contact. More from Variety Advanced HDR by Technicolor Unaffected by Technicolor's Bankruptcy, Plans NAB Exhibition VFX and Animation Studio Cinesite Raises $215 Million On the Heels of Technicolor Collapse Technicolor Bankruptcy: Gaming Unit Sold to TransPerfect; VFX and Animation Future Still Uncertain 'Just like that, the place where we had poured the majority of our professional careers and passion — our creative home — was gone,' says Robert Sethi, who was executive creative director at The Mill's Los Angeles base. But he and additional members of The Mill's U.S. leadership weren't ready to give up on the team behind what was long considered among the top commercial VFX brands in the world. A group of them banded together and joined forces with Dream Machine FX, a group holding company for VFX brands, to launch a new venture dubbed ARC Creative. A month later, members of The Mill's U.S. leadership team shared with Variety their personal stories and recollections of the 72-hour period from receiving notice of Technicolor's downfall to launching ARC Creative amid a chaotic and emotional weekend. Technicolor was contacted for this story. Members of the ARC Creative team share that after receiving word from Technicolor, that Friday afternoon they talked with David Li, chairman of Dream Machine FX, the venture behind VFX brands such as Important Looking Pirates, whose recent credits include 'Shogun.' The meeting was hastily arranged by Niklas Jacobson, co-founder of ILP and a Dream Machine partner. 'I go back 25 years with several key people at Dream Machine. Yafei Wu and Niklas Jacobson, the founders of ILP, and I started our careers together in Sweden in 2000,' Sethi says. In the close-knit VFX community, other leaders at The Mill also had ties to individuals at Dream Machine including Li. The Mill was founded in 1990 in London and grew to become a globally-recognized VFX and creative leader for short-form work in areas including commercials, marketing and games. It was acquired by Technicolor in 2015. The individuals say that they explained their situation to Li, and together they went to work to find a way forward, though amid increasing disarray. 'By the time we get off the call with David, news has already leaked that Technicolor is shutting down and that everyone had been fired. As you imagine the next 12 hours are absolute chaos, talking to the crew, getting frantic calls from clients, all while trying to figure out if this Dream Machine thing could even be possible,' according to Anastasia von Rahl, managing director of The Mill L.A. The Mill's clients, it appears, didn't hear directly from Technicolor, but rather learned of its predicament through the press or industry colleagues. Von Rahl says that through that weekend, The Mill team also worked with clients to help them to retrieve their assets, including projects in production. 'We called the crew who just got WARN notices and asked them to come in and help us prep and ship material back to clients so they could finish their productions,' she remembers. 'A moment stands out vividly to me. Jacky Gilson, the head of production from EA, called and I immediately start running through the plan on how we had a team working all weekend to be able to hit their deadline and she stopped me mid-sentence to say, 'I called to see if you are OK.'' Gavin Wellsman, who was executive creative director at The Mill New York, reveals that there were other challenges in trying to create a business amid the shutdown. 'Over the weekend, senior Technicolor executives — the same ones who had their hands on the wheel this entire time and some of whom had proclaimed just a few months prior in the last town hall that Technicolor had turned a corner — attempted to launch similar companies with private equity backing, which created even more confusion for the staff,' he reveals. Wellsman was on a family vacation when he got the news. 'I was shocked and devastated. I was fully aware of Technicolor's financial problems but I never thought for a second that The Mill would ever close its doors,' he says, adding that he spent that Friday on the phone, calling staff and clients. 'Having spent my entire career at The Mill, my first thought was the staff and their families, from the runners to the MD's we were all being relieved of our duties and left without any severance so we knew we had to make a plan and act quickly.' On those calls, he also learned of the potential opportunity with Dream Machine. 'I raced back home to Brooklyn to get to work.' Sethi says that by Saturday morning, he and von Rahl were back on the phone with Li, 'who laid out a possible path forward. The night before, we had worked tirelessly — drafting a business plan, exploring every angle, and trying to shape what this could become. Together with David we outlined exactly what needed to happen and the scale and number of people Dream Machine could responsibly bring on. We knew time wasn't on our side. With a crew this talented, people had to do what was best for their families and livelihoods.' Angela Lupo, who was The Mill's New York managing director, relates that with Li's go-ahead, they began to share the plan with artists, 'communicating that we may have a path out of the fire and taking a temperature on who was in. I knew we had to move quickly to make as smooth of a transition as possible for the people coming along. We also needed to get ahead of all the misinformation out in the market.' Von Rahl adds that the logistics of starting the venture over that weekend ranged from finding insurance — 'this was the end of the month so people were losing insurance at the end of the week' — to setting up payroll and onboarding the team. Over the years, The Mill's work has been recognized with countless honors including Cannes Lions, Clios, and Visual Effects Society Awards, in addition to a VFX Oscar for its work on 2000's 'Gladiator.' But now they needed a new brand. Sethi relates that they chose ARC Creative because it 'meant something to us, because not only were we trying to build a proverbial boat over a weekend, but this was a major pivot in the story for all of us. 'Creative' being added was important because that's the through line of all the talent.' Mill creative director Ilya Abulkhavov sketched company logos amid the naming discussions. The Mill leaders believe it was trust in a tight-knit team built during their careers that also helped to launch the effort amid the Technicolor closure. 'Trust had been gradually eroding for a long time and I think at this point with the sudden notice of closure, the trust was now gone completely with corporate management,' suggests Wellsman. 'On the other hand, with the four of us [The Mill leaders in New York and L.A.], the staff had seen us push for change over the years. I never thought that I would be faced with a decision to start a company within 72 hours and would be making the biggest decision of my career. The message in my head that was on loop was 'the staff deserve better' and even though I had also been left high and dry along with everyone else I felt like it was my duty to try and keep as many of the core team together as possible.' According to von Rahl, ARC Creative was able to hire roughly 100 people full-time while providing freelance work to an additional 50 artists — more than half of The Mill's U.S. team — and plan to keep their bicoastal operations. They are currently working in temp space while looking for permanent locations in Los Angeles and New York. Lupo acknowledged PostWorks New York, which shared their space, allowing ARC to quickly start working with clients. Von Rahl reports that ARC Creative currently has 21 projects in house, thanks to relationships they had developed over the years, including with Electronic Arts and Amazon. In prior Variety coverage, sources who were employed by Technicolor (both in the past and at the time of the closure, though not Mill employees) contended that mismanagement was the major cause of Technicolor's collapse, though VFX pros also acknowledge that some poor decisions were likely exacerbated by an already challenging business model. The industry continues to suffer from low margins and is heavily impacted by tax credits that have post-production work moving from one part of the world to another in an endless quest for the best incentives. And like the rest of Hollywood, in recent years the impact of pandemic shutdowns and 2023's double strikes by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA further challenged the business. At noon on Monday, Feb. 24, The Mill staff was walked out of their offices and the doors were closed. That day, thousands of employees from around the world at Technicolor-owned brands lost their jobs as the company began to close. (Since that day, Technicolor Games was acquired by global language translation and AI tech business Transperfect.) ARC Creative was then hurriedly announced. Von Rahl says community support gave her optimism, 'from our editorial friends offering to let us come into their space, production companies ringing to say they will support and send work, an agency partner offering to help write strategy, to Amazon calling and asking to be the first client.' 'We were overwhelmed with the outpouring and love and support from friends, clients and colleagues who could not believe that we rallied so quickly,' Wellsman remembers. 'I think that most of the people that responded really needed something good to come out of this absolute disaster.' 'I had mixed emotions. I was still in shock, a little nervous but also extremely excited for the future.' Best of Variety The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Oscars 2026: First Blind Predictions Including Timothée Chalamet, Emma Stone, 'Wicked: For Good' and More
