Studios poaching NZ animators

Some giant American film studios are trying to fill a shortage of movie animators by poaching from New Zealand special-effects companies, including Weta Digital.

The commercial success of director Adam Adamson's Shrek movies, and other animated features such as Finding Nemo, has created huge demand for staff skilled at computer graphics.

Recruiters at California-based DreamWorks Animation - which produced the Shrek films - recently returned from a trip to New Zealand to woo workers from Weta Digital, the computer effects operation co-owned by director Peter Jackson, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

"Everybody wants the same people," said Kathy Mandato, head of human resources for DreamWorks Animation, which plans to hire nearly 200 animators in the next year.

Hollywood studios have largely abandoned hand-drawn animation, instead pouring millions of dollars into developing computer-animated features: about 25 such films are scheduled for release by the end of 2007.

The production boom has left universities and art schools struggling to train enough animators.

To strengthen its talent base, Sony Pictures Imageworks recently launched a programme to expose staff-members from schools such as the Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida and the USC School of Cinema-Television to the latest animation techniques.

And the animation division of George Lucas' Lucasfilm has dispatched its animators to teach artists at its new Singapore studios, which will produce Clone Wars, a television series based on his Star Wars movies, and work on feature films.

DreamWorks and other studios are not just competing with one another for good job candidates, but with video-game companies as well. Game publishers are fiercely courting skilled animators.

- NZPA