Money Speaks

And having an available pool of talent is good too.

... Sony Pictures Imageworks has now opened up its global headquarters in B.C.

The 74,000-square foot building opened up in downtown Vancouver on Wednesday, becoming the city’s largest visual effects and digital character animation studio. ...

The new head office in Vancouver has a full training facility and allows Imageworks to double its staff, housing more than 700 artists on a single floor. ...

Imageworks is at work at seven different projects that have Vancouver crews doing over 90 per cent of the visual effects and animation work. ...

The way the world is currently constructed, corporations are large welfare queens. You can get twisted up about it, you can scream, but it won't change the reality.

Visual effects work and animated features now get done in Europe, India, China, Australia, New Zealand and oh yeah, North America. Productions are pulled hither and yon by talent, wage levels, tax subsidies. For decades, California had an advantage with quality levels, but Chris Meledandri showed that Paris-made animated features were as profitable as cartoons made in Emeryville or Burbank.

Until Illumination Entertainment did it, the biggest money-earning cartoon features were produced stateside. That's no longer the case, but talent availability and production experience still count, which is why California is still in the race. Added to which, global animation has steadily expanded, and with cartoons and visual effects movies more profitable than ever, that expansion shows few signs of slackening.

So everybody wins.