Animation firm grows one frame at a time

Allan Magled has a simple formula for business success. Love what you do. Learn as you grow. And never take on more than you can handle.

He is president and one of three partners of Toronto-based Soho VFX, a special effects studio that has been expanding with each project that comes its way. Now in its seventh year of operations, Soho VFX's portfolio of projects includes such blockbusters as Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The team of 70 full-time employees (numbers can reach 120 when projects are in full swing) animate characters, lighting, scenery and textures for the film industry from a 7,500-square-foot studio.

That is a far cry from the early days, when four people worked in a room the size of a freight elevator on television and short feature projects. "It was a great way to start," Mr. Magled says. "If the projects had been any larger, it would have been hard on us because we had to everything ourselves. Our computers were the cheapest you could get and we didn't have a render farm."

The team built up its repertoire by honing its software capabilities, he says. "Our software just kept getting better. We got very good at doing fur characters and creatures."

Over time, the studio built the infrastructure to take on bigger and better projects. "It's hard when you're new because the first question studios ask is if you have the infrastructure," Mr. Magled says. "You have to prove yourself each time."

Its big technology leap came in 2004. By then Soho VFX had landed jobs big enough to justify the investment. "Fantastic Four was the best thing that happened since it took us to where we are today."

"It takes a lot of processors to do this kind of work," says Kevin Smith, enterprise solutions brand manager for Dell Canada in Toronto. "The performance needs are similar to what university researchers use for advanced computational analysis."

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