Toronto FX house Invisible Pictures is keeping a lower profile than founders Neil Williamson and Noel Hooper are accustomed to, but they prefer it that way.

The pair launched Invisible back in 2004 to provide film and TV productions with compositing and digital matte painting services, from crowd replacement to set extensions. The shop’s recent credits include the horror flick Slither, the videogame adaptations Silent Hill and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, the black comedy Weirdsville, and the Elisabeth Shue thriller First Born.

Williamson founded animation and FX shop Calibre Digital Pictures back in 1988, selling a 50% stake to Atlantis Communications (now part of Alliance Atlantis) in 1997, but remaining president before a complete buyout a couple of years later. Hooper, a Calibre alum, reunited with Williamson by way of cross-town rival Mr. X, where he was a digital compositor on horror pictures such as Dawn of the Dead and Resident Evil: Apocalypse. He functions as Invisible’s VFX director.

On the high-profile productions Invisible has worked on, it has left the hero creature work to other shops, in a bid to stay lean and mean in challenging times.

‘We’re no Calibre – no everything to everyone. We’re a niche player,’ says Williamson, Invisible’s creative director and VFX supervisor. He adds that, in his estimation, today’s busy, fast-changing FX market demands you operate as a boutique player, rather than as a full-service house.

‘You need to be focused and versatile,’ he says.

Williamson acknowledges that Invisible had its start-up challenges, but in the last year has ridden a boom in demand for digital matte painting. Producers may be counting their pennies, but they also see the value in digital movie backgrounds.

For example, Invisible turned a farm field into turn-of-the-century Boston, complete with a golf course, for Disney’s The Greatest Game Ever Played.

‘We not only creatively enhance the director’s vision, but get as much money onto the screen as possible,’ Williamson says.

Williamson and Hooper have plans to open additional boutique houses, but are tightlipped about specifics.

‘We’re designing our professional lives around things we are passionate about and where we’re confident we will be successful in a short period of time,’ Williamson says.

www.invisiblepictures.ca