Nitrogen Studios

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nitrogen Studios Canada, Inc.
IndustryComputer animation
FoundedOctober 2003; 18 years ago (2003-10)
FounderGreg Tiernan
Nicole Stinn
Headquarters
Vancouver, British Columbia
,
Canada
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Nicole Stinn (President and CEO)
Greg Tiernan (CCO)
OwnerGreg Tiernan
Nicole Stinn
Number of employees
51 - 200
ParentCinesite

Nitrogen Studios Canada, Inc. (commonly referred to as Nitrogen Studios) is a Canadian animation company founded by husband and wife duo Greg Tiernan and . The company was founded in October 2003, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Nitrogen Studios is best known for animating the long-running British television series Thomas & Friends, starting with animating CGI faces onto models, provided by Shepperton Studios in 2008, with Season 12, and switching to full CGI in 2009 with Season 13 (2009), Season 14 (2010), Season 15 (2011), and Season 16 (2012). Along with animating the 4 seasons, came 4 feature-length specials, including Hero of the Rails (2009), Misty Island Rescue (2010), Day of the Diesels (2011), and Blue Mountain Mystery (2012). Greg served as a unit director, and Nicole served as a unit producer. All seasons and films were co-produced with HiT Entertainment.

Before animating Thomas & Friends, they animated the 2006 CGI family comedy film Happily N'Ever After, distributed by Lionsgate, and co-produced with Odyssey Entertainment and Vanguard Animation, only for it to perform as a box office flop, earning $37 million on a $47 million budget. In 2016, Greg Tiernan, along with Conrad Vernon, directed the highest-grossing R-rated CGI adult comedy film, Sausage Party, distributed by Columbia Pictures, co-produced with Annapurna Pictures and Point Grey, earning $140 million on a $19 million budget.

Greg and Conrad then produced and directed The Addams Family (2019), a film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, The Jackal Group, and Bron Creative, distributed by United Artists Releasing in the US, and Universal Pictures internationally, and The Addams Family 2 (2021), a film co-produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, BermanBraun, Glickmania, and Bron Creative, distributed by United Artists Releasing in the US, and Universal Pictures internationally. The Addams Family earned $203 million on a $24 million budget, and The Addams Family 2 earned $110 million on a $47 million budget.

A fifth theatrical film, Arkie, is in production.

For Television, they also produced Dan Vs., an American animated television series created by Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson, produced by Film Roman and The Hatchery, and distributed by Starz Distribution. They provided lip-sync for 27 episodes, spanning from February 26, 2011, to June 23, 2012. They animated two episodes of the Netflix series Trollhunters, co-produced with DreamWorks Animation and Double Dare You, with the first airing on December 23, 2016, and the 2nd airing on May 25, 2018.

The company's other projects are God of War, a 2005 action-adventure game developed by Santa Monica Studio, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, a 2008 role-playing game developed by BioWare, published by Sega for the Nintendo DS, and Kodee's Canoe, a 2010 interactive app series.

On March 7, 2017, it was acquired by British visual effects and feature animation studio company Cinesite.[1]

Filmography[]

Feature films[]

Theatrical[]

Year Title Co-production Notes
2006 Happily N'Ever After Vanguard Animation
Odyssey Entertainment
Lionsgate
2016 Sausage Party Point Grey Pictures
Annapurna Pictures
Columbia Pictures 		[2]
2019 The Addams Family Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Cinesite Studios
The Jackal Group
United Artists Releasing
Bron Creative
United Artists Releasing
2021 The Addams Family 2 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
BermanBraun
Glickmania
Bron Creative
Cinesite Studios
United Artists Releasing
TBA Arkie Passion Pictures
Luma 		[3][4][5]

Direct-to-Video[]

Year Title Co-production
2009 Hero of the Rails Hit Entertainment
2010 Misty Island Rescue
2011 Day of the Diesels
2012 Blue Mountain Mystery

Television[]

Premiere Date End Date Title Channel Note
January 9, 2008 December 25, 2012 Thomas & Friends PBS Kids
Channel 5
Treehouse TV 		100 episodes: CGI series; co-produced with HIT Entertainment
February 26, 2011 June 23, 2012 Dan Vs. Hub Network 27 episodes: lip sync; co-produced with Film Roman, The Hatchery, and Starz Media
December 23, 2016 May 25, 2018 Trollhunters Netflix 2 episodes: co-produced with DreamWorks Animation and Double Dare You

Other projects[]

Year Title Medium
2005 God of War (uncredited) Video game with Santa Monica Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment, and JP: Capcom
2008 Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood Video game with Bioware and Sega
2010 Kodee’s Canoe Interactive app series

Controversy[]

Several days after the release of Sausage Party, allegations of poor treatment of Nitrogen Studios employees surfaced in the comments section of an interview with Tiernan and co-director Conrad Vernon, featured on the website Cartoon Brew.[6] Various anonymous posters, purporting to be animators who worked on the film in question, made claims including that Nitrogen forced them to work overtime for free and that some employees were threatened with termination. Some animators who complained or left due to stress went uncredited in the film. One poster stated that Tiernan had developed a reputation for "disturbing behaviour and abusive management style".[7] Publications such as the Washington Post[8] the Los Angeles Times[9] and /Film[10] have picked up the story.

References[]

  1. ^ Regan Reid (March 7, 2017). "Cinesite Studios acquires Nitrogen". Kidscreen. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  2. ^ Burns, Elias; Vlessing, Etan (August 16, 2016). "'Sausage Party' Animators' Pay Dispute Surfaces After Big Opening". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  3. ^ "Nitrogen On Board To Animate Scarygirl Feature 'Arkie'". February 13, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
  4. ^ Ritman, Alex (May 20, 2017). "Cannes: Shailene Woodley, Jai Courtney Team for 'Arkie'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  5. ^ Frater, Patrick (December 14, 2017). "Australian Animation 'Arkie' Sold to Vision for China Release". Variety Magazine. Retrieved December 20, 2016.
  6. ^ Sausage Party's Animators Were Treated Like Shit
  7. ^ 'Sausage Party' Directors Conrad Vernon & Greg Tiernan On Making 2016’s Most Outlandish Animated Film
  8. ^ The working conditions for some ‘Sausage Party’ animators were pretty terrible
  9. ^ 'Sausage Party' anything but a good time at work, some animators say
  10. ^ 'Sausage Party' Allegedly Forced Animators to Work Overtime for Free, Refused to Credit Artists

External links[]

Retrieved from ""