DNeg and Elizabeth Murdoch to open Locksmith Animation studio in the UK

According to yesterday's Variety, Elizabeth Murdoch and the London based visual effects house Double Negative are opening an animation studio in the UK, to be known as Locksmith Animation. The venture is being piloted by Sarah Smith, who was the writer and co-director of the Aardman animated feature film Arthur Christmas.

Double Negative lays off Bond Workers

"You're fired"

According to the London Evening Standard, Double Negative, which did a lot of work for the latest Bond film SkyFall, is laying off staff. These days the word in London seems to "Vancouver", as projects and jobs get exported to Canada, which offers a Producer tax credit of 40% to film-makers who carry out their work there. Add in some regional subsidies and you can finance over 50% of the value of your film courtesy of the Canadian tax-payer.

According to Double Negative: “The number of people we will be making redundant is not significant. From time to time we need to grow and contract to reflect the needs of the films we are working on. Our policy has always been — and will continue to be — to hold onto people where possible."

And there is a lot of truth in this. Big projects come and go, companies expand and contract. DNeg took on hundreds of people a year and a half ago to crew up the epic John Carter, a film that - for reasons I don't fully understand - no-one wanted to see.

Meanwhile Soho visual effects artists wait for the next big project, wondering if they should be applying for a Canadian visa.

----Alex