Digital Domain

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Digital Domain
Type	Privately held company
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA
Key people	Michael Bay, John Textor, Carl Stork, Mark Miller, Cliff Plumer, Kim Libreri, Ed Ulbrich, Yvette Macaluso
Industry	Visual Effects, CGI animation
Employees	500-1,000
Parent	Wyndcrest Holdings, LLC
Website	D2.com

From the film Stealth: the fictional F/A-37 Talon on USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).

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Digital Domain is a visual effects and animation company based in Venice, Los Angeles, California. The company is known for creating state-of-the-art digital imagery for feature films, television advertising, interactive visual media and the video game industry. Digital Domain also provides technical software solutions for the visual effects and animation industry.

1 History
2 Awards
3 References
4 Further reading
5 External links

[edit] History

The company began producing visual effects in 1993, its first three films being True Lies, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles and Color of Night in 1994. It has produced effects for more than 60 films including Titanic, Apollo 13, What Dreams May Come, The Fifth Element, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Armageddon, and The Day After Tomorrow. More recent films include , I, Robot, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Transformers, The Golden Compass and most recently, Speed Racer. Current visual effects projects in production include The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (produced by Stephen Sommers and directed by Rob Cohen) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall and directed by David Fincher).

In 2002, the company launched a subsidiary to market and distribute its Academy Award-winning compositing software, Nuke. The move was partially motivated by Apple's acquisition of a similar program, Shake.

Digital Domain was started by ex-ILM General Manager Scott Ross after he left the LucasFilm organization. Ross wrote the business plan and was then contacted by director James Cameron who had heard through the grapevine that Ross was starting a new visual effects company to directly compete with ILM. Cameron suggested that his long time friend and associate, Stan Winston, join the company as its third founder. The company had IBM as its initial investor. Then in 1996, Ross hired investment banker Lehman Brothers to bring in new capital partners. Cox Enterprises then acquired a 33% ownership in Digital Domain. In 1998, after the box office success of Titanic, James Cameron and Stan Winston severed their working relationship with Digital Domain, and resigned from its board of directors. In 2003, Digital Domain founder and CEO Scott Ross produced Secondhand Lions at Digital Domain for New Line Cinema.

Digital Domain was purchased in May 2006 by an affiliate of Wyndcrest Holdings, LLC an investment firm whose principals include Wyndcrest founder John Textor, Director Michael Bay, former Microsoft executive Carl Stork, former NFL player and sports television commentator Dan Marino and Jonathan Teaford.^[1] In September of 2006 it was announced that Digital Domain hired a trio of top senior execs from Industrial Light & Magic: Mark Miller (a 22-year vet of ILM, most recently vp and senior exec in charge of production and marketing) had been named president, Cliff Plumer (CTO of ILM) was named CTO and Kim Libreri (a visual effects supervisor at ILM) joined as Vice President, Advanced Strategy. In November of 2007, Mark Miller was promoted to Chief Executive Officer, replacing Carl Stork who had been serving since the acquisition in an interim capacity.

[edit] Awards

Digital Domain's business units have been recognized with awards from many top industry organizations. As of 2006, Digital Domain has won five Academy Awards: two for Best Visual Effects (Titanic, What Dreams May Come); and three for Scientific and Technical Achievement for its proprietary imaging software (for its proprietary compositing software NUKE, for its proprietary 3D tracking software TRACK and for its volumetric renderer STORM).^[2] The company has also been nominated for three other Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects (Apollo 13, True Lies, I, Robot). In addition, its excellence in digital imagery and animation has earned Digital Domain multiple British Academy (BAFTA) Awards, and Prix Ars Electronica and Prix Pixel INA awards.^[3]

Digital Domain's Commercials division provides digital imagery and animation for television commercials, working with top commercial directors. To date, it has been awarded 34 Clio Awards, 22 AICP awards, 8 Cannes Lion Awards and numerous other advertising honors. The Commercials division has also produced multiple music videos working with artists that include The Rolling Stones, Faith Hill, Creed, Janet Jackson, Busta Rhymes, Björk, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson and Nine Inch Nails, and has earned Grammy and MTV "Music Video of the Year" Awards.^[4]