Hollywood’s recent appetite for fully computer-animated features has opened a door for visual effects houses to move beyond supporting live-action films and into starring roles as makers of all-CGI movies.

Big wins by films such as Shrek and Monsters, Inc. have studios greenlighting many new digital-animation projects, and traditional animation companies are already booked up. That gap has encouraged effects vendors to bid for high-profile toon work, hoping to showcase their storytelling chops and diversify their businesses.

Longtime f/x firms now vying for animation assignments include Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues and Tippett Studio. Though these companies built reputations on visual effects, they have spent years investing in software and talent that can produce fully animated characters and worlds.

Sony Pictures Imageworks is already neck-deep in feature animation, producing Sony’s Astroboy and handling extensive character animation on Stuart Little 2 — a film that required roughly 120 animators to create five principal CG characters and delivered about an hour-plus of animated screen time, with animated figures appearing in the majority of shots. Imageworks’ work on Spider-Man also illustrates how much of a live-action blockbuster can be CG, from the cityscapes to the swinging hero.

ILM, too, has been expanding its animation footprint. The company’s experience ranges from digital characters in the Star Wars prequels to creating the CGI Hulk for a live-action world. ILM has been in discussions to handle computer-animated versions of children’s classics being developed at Universal, and it continues to blend toon work into big studio productions.

Despite the momentum, the transition from effects to full-length animation is not simply a technical switch. Executives note that animation requires a different production mindset, especially in producing, sequencing and storytelling. Building a competent animation team — one that understands the iterative, director-led process of feature animation — takes years, not months.

Effects houses also face perception and marketplace hurdles. Studios and producers must be convinced these vendors can deliver crowd-pleasing, character-driven films in the way Pixar and PDI/DreamWorks have. Those companies have solidified their positions: Pixar has expanded facilities to handle multiple projects, and PDI is growing its pipelines and campuses to work concurrently on several features.

Industry relationships create another layer of complexity. Distribution and production ties often keep certain properties within specific animation shops — DreamWorks’ films go to PDI, Fox channels projects to Blue Sky, and Disney maintains tight links with Pixar. Sony’s Imageworks has role clarity within its parent studio, but other effects houses find themselves competing for projects from independent studios and majors like Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros.

Still, visual effects vendors see a natural evolution in their work. As films increasingly incorporate entirely CG characters and environments, the lines between effects and animation blur, making the move into fully animated features a logical next step for many shops. The opportunity looks promising, but success will depend on talent development, proven storytelling ability and forging the right studio partnerships.

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