Commencing operations in Vancouver this month, Basilic Fly Studio Canada is pleased to announce the addition of VFX Supervisor Rob Bannister to its ranks.
Bannister grew up on the east coast of Nova Scotia and was drawn to the arts early on as a way of stretching his imagination. He found that the world of VFX combined his love of art, tech, and his inquisitive nature to prove the impossible possible.
Upon Graduating from MacKenzie College of Animation at 18, Bannister started his own web design, branding & animation company where he primarily took on TV & music video projects.
In 2008 Bannister made the move to Vancouver as Editor/Compositor for Sepia Films. From there it was on to CIS, where he worked in Houdini doing crowd simulation on the film Invictus and honed his skills in NUKE, which really began to open things up for him on the work front.
2010 brought him to Zoic as a compositor for both TV and Feature projects, and in 2011, Rob was brought on at LUX VFX to Lead their compositing team, unifying workflows with 3D and ensure the quality and consistency of the work coming out of the studio.
Harkening back to his inquisitive nature, Bannister began shadowing Lux owner Kevin Little onset in order to have a deeper understanding of how things were shot and why, allowing him to find ways to better integrate with production and get more useful data and elements from the set which led to a more streamlined, cost-effective work process.
In 2016, Bannister moved to CoSA, working on episodes like Gotham, The Walking Dead, Lucifer and features like The Conjuring 2.
Through his independent VFX supervision work on both Blue Book Reports S1 and The Order S1, Rob was able to capitalize on his early involvement on these projects, working directly with showrunners, writers, directors, camera & art departments as well as SPFX and MUFX teams to integrate practical and digital effects, stretching the allotted budgets far beyond the norm.
2019 had Bannister working as VFX Supervisor on location in the remote reaches of Xingjiang China and then back to Vancouver for work in the same capacity on several projects, including Marvel’s Helstrom, before the Covid shutdown.
After a stint with Crafty Apes last Fall, Bannister took some time to be with family back east in Nova Scotia before resuming his independent VFX supervision work this summer.
Bannister first became aware of Basilic Fly’s work through Marvel’s Helstrom and found them “great-to-work-with as they not only offered high-quality work, but stellar communication throughout the show, making collaboration across the globe very seamless.”
“I look forward to bringing my years of experience and problem-solving skills to the table at Basilic Fly Canada and I’m excited about showing clients – old and new – how we can maximize their budgets through careful, early planning; creative problem solving and our artistic depth across both our Canadian and Indian studios.”
Basilic Fly Studio Founder, Balakrishnan Rajarathinam (Bala) says “Rob a stellar addition to the BFS family and he will help us to up the creative-ante across both our studios. Rob’s vast experiences and leadership skills are really going to allow our Canadian operations to hit the ground running. As we round out our Vancouver recruitment push, we look forward to offering our clients more in-person collaboration from pre-production through delivery for BC-based productions and beyond.”
Yogalakshmi Sundaram (Yoga), a director on the board of Basilic Fly Studio, shared “Vancouver BC is perfectly situated to help us better maintain and grow our global client base. Given its proximity to renowned production and post houses on this side of the world, we feel our clients will greatly benefit not only from the creative collaboration but also from the larger tax credit base that they will be able to claim when working with our Vancouver Studio. Knowing the depths of Rob’s knowledge and his appetite for creative, challenging work, we look forward to supporting Rob and the rest of the Vancouver team as we get underway.”
Jennifer Hargreaves, EP / Business Development NA adds, “From our first conversation with Rob, we felt really positive. He has an ability to consider the tasks at hand from many perspectives; taking into account how an approach will impact both the production and post-production teams’ schedules and budgets. He is truly a producer’s dream come true and I’m really looking forward to working with him as we kickstart things in Vancouver.”
Project inquiries: jen@basilicfly.com
Job inquiries: jobs@basilicfly.com
