London VFX outfit Union launches studio in Montreal, Canada

London visual effects company Union has opened its first international studio in Montreal, Canada.

As Union enters its 15th year, the company now seek to expand their services in feature film and high-end television.

According to Deadline, the new studio is based in a refurbished industrial building called Le Nordelec between Griffintown and Pointe-Saint-Charles; and are in the process of recruiting technical, creative and production jobs for its Canadian team. 

The London VFX company and fully independent studio has worked across an array of projects from industry icons including: Sam Mendes, Martin McDonagh, Danny Boyle and Stephen Frears. In the last three years, Union expanded its CG team, delivering VFX on projects including Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, Netflix series The Irregulars, John Madden’s Operation Mincemeat, Prime Video’s Wheel of Time, Disney+’s Moon Knight, HBO Max’s Pennyworth and Oscar-nominated title The Banshees of Inisherin. 

Union has recently completed work on Amazon’s nine-part sci-fi series The Power, starring Toni Collette.

“Adam and I have backgrounds at bigger VFX studios and our plan with Union was to build a VFX company that had all the best bits from our experiences with the benefits and personability of an independent studio,” said Caplan of the group’s expansion to Montreal. “Over the last 15 years we have definitely achieved this in London and, with the ongoing upturn in film and TV projects globally, the time is right to do the same in another region.

“We decided on Montreal pre-pandemic. It’s the perfect place ideally positioned for us to work with clients across multiple time zones with an incredible pool of local VFX talent and a generous tax relief system. All of this, plus finding a brilliant studio space made it a no-brainer. We are all hugely excited about this next chapter for Union.” (Via Deadline)