The Imaginarium Studios makes three key hires

The Imaginarium Studios, one of the most prestigious mocap & performance capture studios in the world, announces the appointments of Business Development Manager for gaming Alex Hill, Post Production Supervisor Dan Baybutt & Operations Manager Lucy Pennington. All will report to CEO Matt Brown. 

Commenting on the appointments CEO Matt Brown said “We are delighted to add such qualified and talented new members to our team. Alex has great connections within the video games sector and he’s a proven commercial leader; his arrival consolidates our strategy which aims to keep on developing services for gaming projects but also to expand our content to target other creative sectors. Lucy having worked at Pinewood previously will be such an asset to our clients and I’m thrilled to have Dan return to us after years of him honing his craft on a range of impressive film, video games and music projects. “ 

Working out of both company facilities at Pinewood Studios and Ealing, Alex’s immediate focus will be to strategically strengthen and further position the studio to service existing & new gaming clients. He will also partner with existing film & TV clients to provide them with top quality services while procuring new clients and identifying fresh business ventures and opportunities. 

Prior to joining The Imaginarium Studios, Alex was a Lead Producer in the central Zynga creative Marketing team, managing  asset creation for games such as Star Wars Hunters, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Words with Friends, CSR2 Racing & FarmVille 3. Before this he was the Senior Manager of Creative Services at Activision Blizzard, delivering localised artwork assets in 15 – 20 languages for all AAA Franchise titles globally on PlayStation, XBOX, Nintendo, PC & Mobile.

“It is a very exciting opportunity to join one of the most iconic and ground-breaking performance capture studios in the world,” Alex said. “Working with The Imaginarium Studios creative and technical talent provides endless creative ideation. I can’t wait to work closely with the creative teams at games studios and AAA Franchises, to be able to showcase our industry leading expertise to new clients and also helping The Imaginarium expand the scope of their amazing portfolio.”

Dan Baybutt returns to The Imaginarium Studios as Post Production Supervisor having originally started his career with the company back in 2015. In between he worked at Weta FX , where he was a Motion Editor, prior to this he worked at ILM as a mocap TD. Throughout his career he has played a pivotal role in bringing memorable performances to films that have heavily relied on motion and performance capture such as Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman & Mowgli:Legend of the Jungle. He’s also been instrumental in many gaming productions and virtual concerts like ABBA Voyage.

Commenting on his appointment Dan said “ I am delighted to be re-joining the team, my love for the art of storytelling through performance capture fits perfectly with The Imaginarium Studios.  I’m looking forward to building on the established legacy and bringing my knowledge and expertise to support clients.”

In her operations role Lucy will be based at Pinewood and the company’s offices in Ealing, she’ll be responsible for all aspects of logistics and planning support to the production clients before, during and after their residency at the studio.

Lucy is on familiar ground having joined the company from Pinewood Studios where she worked as a receptionist providing excellent customer service as the first point of contact welcoming Visitors, Productions, Tenants and Staff.

The Imaginarium studio was formed in 2012 by legendary actor and director Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes and Star Wars franchises) as a stand-alone facility focused on performance-led Capture and Virtual Production services. Andy’s revolutionary approach to performance capture has created numerous innovations and new methods that have changed the industry and the company continues to push the boundaries of what is possible. It was announced in May that the company had joined the Cinesite group of companies. Recent credits include: the upcoming Napoleon (Sony Pictures Entertainment) Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 (Marvel Studios) Stormzy’s Rockstar ‘Press Play’ concert, Netflix’s Dance Monsters & Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.