The Orphanage was a visual effects studio located in California. It had offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was co-founded in 1999 by Stu Maschwitz, Jonathan Rothbart, and Scott Stewart, who all previously worked at Industrial Light & Magic. Scott Kirsner at Hollywood Reporter [1] interviewed a couple of the founders, and writes about the company and its plans. Stu Maschwitz created the Magic Bullet software which gives video a film look, and wrote a book about guerrilla filmmaking called The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap .
The Orphanage was known for its work on both commercials and features. The company then launched but later closed Orphanage Animation Studios [2] which was headed up by Genndy Tartakovsky, and was due to make their film debut with the ill-fated Power of the Dark Crystal . They never made any projects except for Sym-Bionic Titan .
The Orphanage did approximately 640 shots for the "That Yellow Bastard" section of Sin City (2005). [3] as well as three other films with Robert Rodriguez, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over , The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, and the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez co-directed double feature Grindhouse .
The company has worked on a number of Hollywood blockbusters including Superman Returns , Night at the Museum , Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest & At World's End, and the Korean blockbuster The Host . They created the Heads-up display (HUD) for the hi-tech suit of armour in the Marvel Studios production of Iron Man , for which their work was nominated for a 2008 VES Award (for Best Compositing).
They have also created commercials and a handful of Super Bowl spots for clients as varied as Comcast, Toshiba, HP, Benadryl, Nicoderm, and several award-winning spots for Sony PlayStation's Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando .
On February 4, 2009, the company announced it was suspending operations indefinitely, after 10 years in the business. The announcement was made by company co-founders Stu Maschwitz, Scott Stewart, and Jonathan Rothbart, and announced on Mr. Maschwitz's blog. [4] No immediate notice was posted on the company's website. Although the announcement gave no reason for the closing, bloggers attributed the closing to general economic conditions. [5] [6]
