London VFX House Union opens studio in Montreal

EXCLUSIVE: British visual effects company Union is opening its first international studio in Montreal, Canada to expand the services it offers to its feature film and high-end television clients.

The new studio, which opens to celebrate Union’s 15th anniversary, is located in a renovated industrial building called Le Nordelec between Griffintown and Pointe-Saint-Charles. Union is recruiting technical, creative and production positions at all levels for its Canadian team.

Founded in 2008 by Adam Gascoyne and Tim Caplan, Union has gone from strength to strength and quickly become a top player in the London VFX scene. The fully independent studio has worked on a range of projects from top talent including Sam Mendes, Martin McDonagh, Danny Boyle and Stephen Frears. Over the past three years, Union has invested heavily in expanding its CG team, which provides VFX for projects such as Apple TV+ For all mankindNetflix series The disturbancesJohn Maddens operation mincemeatPrime Videos wheel of time, from Disney+ moon knightHBO Max Pennyworth and Oscar-nominated title The Banshees by Inisherin.

The company also just wrapped work on Amazon’s nine-part sci-fi series The powerwith Toni Collette, starting tomorrow (March 31).

“Adam and I have backgrounds in larger VFX studios and our plan with Union was to build a VFX business that would leverage the best of our experience with the benefits and personality of an independent studio,” says Caplan of the expansion from the Group to Montreal. “We have certainly achieved this in London over the last 15 years and with the continued boom in film and television projects worldwide, the time is right to do the same in another region.

“We chose the pandemic in Montreal. It’s the perfect location for us, ideally positioned to work with clients across multiple time zones, with an incredible pool of local VFX talent and a generous tax credit scheme. All this and finding a brilliant studio space made it a no-brainer. We are all very much looking forward to this next chapter for Union.”