Managing director points to impact of strikes for turn in fortunes

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VFX Studio NVIZ has closed down, citing the effects of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

NVIZ was created by the merging of VFX house Nvizable and previs specialist Nvizage in 2019, and it recently worked on major projects such as Black Mirror, The Witcher, Sex Education, Luther, and more. The final project it completed work on was the upcoming fourth series of True Detective, which will release in January. Just this year, it announced a new leadership team, with Luke Kaile stepping up to managing director to work alongside creative director Chris Lunney and co-founder Nic Hatch, and made a number of hires to its VFX team.

However, the length and resulting impact of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes over the past year were noted as a reason the studio, which provided VFX, design, virtual production and visualisation services, had run into difficulties. Kaile posted the news to Linkedin, writing, “Many of you will now be aware NVIZ has had to close its doors due to the impact of the WGA and SAG strikes. I’ve been at NVIZ for 10 years, going through finance, operations and eventually becoming managing director, it is a place that I truly love. An independent company that has completed a staggering amount of work in VFX, GFX, visualisation and virtual production for major features and HETV.

“It’s incredibly sad that NVIZ, after all that incredible effort & hard work, has had its fate be decided by something not within the company’s control. We worked on every scenario possible, our focus always being solely on staff retention over everything else.

“All of the staff deserve bright futures and we’re all utterly distraught to be losing the working environment we worked so hard to foster together. I can’t wait to see what everyone goes on to do next.”

Broadcast Tech understands that employees were kept abreast of the situation through company town halls and Q&As over the past year, and the NVIZ leadership has attempted to get placements for as many staff as possible at other vendors or with clients.