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Pixar Canada will use the new studio it opened in Vancouver on Tuesday to create short-format films, including three to five-minute cartoons for cellphones and other digital media.
Pixar's move to Gastown was welcomed by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.
"The creative economy is now over a third of the jobs in Vancouver, and with Pixar in the mix, there are no limits any more," Robertson told CBC News on Tuesday.
It is the first Pixar studio outside of the U.S. Pixar general manager Amir Nasrabadi said the animation studio settled on Vancouver because it has an existing talent pool, is in the same time zone as California and offers tax breaks to the film industry.
"We believe Vancouver has a very mature high technology capacity," Nasrabadi said.
Pixar Canada is now looking for animation talent to create short films at the new studio featuring some of its popular characters, such as Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story.
The short films will experiment with Pixar's well-known characters and introduce new ones. Some short films will also be produced for specialty TV.
Pixar itself is a Hollywood success story. It produced the world's first computer-generated feature film — Toy Story — in 1995 and has earned 24 Oscars for films such as Monsters Inc., Up and Finding Nemo.
Pixar now has 1,000 employees in California. It is owned by Disney, which plans to expand the Vancouver branch rapidly.
"The most important single thing we have to do in setting up our new studio here is hiring the right people," Pixar Canada's Darwin Peachy said. "And we have to hire quite a few of them because our goal is to have a team of 75 people by 2012."
With files from CBC's Terry DonnellyShare Tools
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