Tippett Studio

From humble beginnings in their garage, in 1984, animation pioneer Phil Tippett and partner Jules Roman founded the company which now employs up to 225 artists and technicians in Berkeley, California.

Phil Tippett, a stop-motion innovator who was once in danger of extinction in the burgeoning field of computerized visual effects, has instead become one of its most enduring figures.

After the Star Wars Trilogy, the Studio began as a stop-motion animation company — designing, building and animating sequences for the CBS series Dinosaur and for movies like Robocop, Robocop II, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Ghostbusters 2. Many of the artists at Tippett today were first inspired to pursue their craft by the work coming out of Tippett Studio when they were just youngsters.

In 1991, the Studio rose to the challenge of creating computer graphic (CG) animation for Steven Spielberg’s seminal Jurassic Park. To link the stop motion animators and CGI animation a Digital Input Device (DID) was created as a bridging technology utilizing tiny sensors to translate stop-motion movements into the digital realm so that the animators could generate CGI animations for the first time. That innovation earned a Scientific & Technical Achievement Academy Award and moved Tippett Studio into the future.

In 1995, Tippett Studio exploded from its crew of 25 into a now customary 200 digital animators, lighters, compositors, engineers and production staff. The challenge: to produce 230 VFX shots for director Paul Verhoevens 1997 science-fiction cult hit Starship Troopers. Groundbreaking technical achievements for Troopers were used to create huge battle scenes with hundreds of alien arachnids swarming the landscape, and were precursors to current crowd-simulation technology. This work resulted in another Academy Award nomination.

In the years since, Tippett Studio has spanned all genres, from horror fantasies like Guillermo del Toro’s HellBoy, to family films like Charlotte’s Web. Tippett also added to its ever-widening range of services, from charming character animation (Ted, Enchanted, Smurfs) to complex environments and layered FX work for films like After Earth, Constantine, Matrix Revolutions, and Immortals. Clients now include all of the major studios, most notably Disney, Summit, Paramount, Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal and Walden Media.

Tippett produced sequences for J.J. Abrams on Cloverfield, seamlessly integrating multiple effects layers into that films infamous hand held style, as well as designing and creating its iconic creature. Tippett also helped translate writer Tony DiTerlizzis fantasy world to the screen by breathing life into its militia of trolls and goblins for The Spiderwick Chronicles. Tippett artists were responsible for the memorable, photorealistic Templeton the Rat in Charlottes Web and the expressive, stylized chipmunk Pip in Enchanted. For the latter, Tippett animators found just the right blend of real chipmunk and the classic Disney 2D style, producing a character who has become one of the most beloved in this popular Disney release.

More recently, Tippett Studio has taken the role as lead house for all of the wolf creatures in the Twilight Saga movies, and fills its slate with Feature Film, Commercial, and Short Film projects year-round.

At the core of Tippett Studios operations is its Proprietary Pipeline, powered by a talented set of engineers who constantly optimize production methods, allowing us to extend our leading edge in cost-effective ways. Technology at Tippett is paramount in keeping us competitive, executing on multiple shows of various sizes concurrently. The flexibility of our infrastructure and pipeline allows us to collaborate easily with our industry partners and vendors alike, regardless of their location. Finally, our R&D team continues its tradition of innovation, collaborating with world-class artists to produce the most sophisticated animation and visual effects, work for which Tippett Studio has gained world renown.