Germany's Rise to open London VFX facility in September

German VFX firm Rise Visual Effects Studios is to open its first UK office in London in September

Located in Holborn, the London office is being run by newly appointed managing director Lara Lom. Swiss-born Lom studied in London and the USA and went on to work at numerous VFX houses in London, Boston and Berlin, gathering experience as a VFX producer on such films as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. She will also spearhead the new office as an executive producer.

Conversion work on the London office’s premises is currently underway and its opening is expected in mid/late September.

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The London studio will contain a state-of-the-art screening room, conference room, and space for 50 artists and editorial. It will also include traditional British pub, which Rise says will be used “for a pint after work as an homage to the early days of VFX in SoHo.”

Rise’s offices in Germany are based in Berlin, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart, employing up to 280 artists in total. A mid-sized VFX facility, it has worked on Marvel films since the first Captain America, with its other credits including Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming The King’s Man, HBO’s Westworld and Lovecraft Country as well as Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Lom said: “There has never been a better time than the latter half of 2020 to expand the Rise brand to Great Britain. Obviously, the market has taken a hit from film shoots being put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But, at the same time, the entire film industry is looking to the visual effects companies to help them re-boot the business as we know it, whilst maintaining the highest safety standards for the crews.”

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Florian Gellinger, one of the co-founders of Rise and executive producer for its four German studios said: “We are very excited about having Lara on board. She has been handling all of the local development now for almost a year and shares our passion for what we do. London was always the place we were dreaming of having a space for gathering talent and to create an environment for creative discussions. The VFX studios and facilities in London are the best in the world and we’ve been inspired by their work since we started Rise. We would be thrilled to be collaborating with them on some very exciting projects in the near future“.

Rise was founded in 2007 by Sven Pannicke, Robert Pinnow, Markus Degen and Florian Gellinger in Berlin.