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MassMarket was formed out of a relationship between Chris Staves (MM Creative Director) and Justin Lane, (MM Executive Producer). Both Chris and Justin worked at Method in Los Angeles where they met. Chris was actually one of the founding members of Method and one of their top Flame artists. After a failed attempt to get Method's parent company Ascent Media to open up an NY office, Chris and Justin decided to leave and build something. The Psyop connection was also built out of a relationship that they had with Justin Booth-Clibborn, the Psyop CEO/E.P.. Justin Booth-Clibborn was another Method Alumni and when he heard that Chris and Justin were interested in starting a VFX division, Psyop became interested in bridging the two.

Since June of 2004 MassMarket has grown in size and competes with the top VFX houses in NYC. While still maintaining a boutique vibe and sensibility, they have built a strong team which includes two additional Flame leads, Nick Tanner (formally from Smoke and Mirrors) and Jamie Scott (The Mill), an up and coming 2D artist Julian Ford (FIN design in Sydney) and a large 3D department lead by 3D leads Jake Slutsky and Jeff Dates. Discover this studio with Justin Lane, Executive Producer at MassMarket

IT'S ART : Tell me how MassMarket came to be/a brief history of MassMarket? What are the main differences between MassMarket and Psyop?

Justin Lane : The main difference between Psyop and MassMarket is that Psyop is set up more like an animation and production house. All Psyop jobs are directed in-house by Psyop. For MassMarket, we mainly work with outside directors and focus most of our efforts on photo-real spots. The differences definitely get blurred in that we share many resources in 3D, 2D and design.

I.A. : What is your studio philosophy?

J.L. : TO KICK ASS! okay, the serious answer is that we take pride in pushing the envelope between design and photo-real work. Because of the connection with Psyop, most of our artists have one foot in design and one foot in photo-real so they bring an interesting perspective to a lot of the work we do. We always try to harness that sensibility in the work to offer something different from other VFX houses.

I.A. : Tell me about the creative process at MassMarket.

J.L. : Our process is very secret, but incorporates lots of peyote and sweat tents.

I.A. : Fisherman is one of the most known ads in France, can you tell me about this project? Did you develop special scripts or a pipeline for it?

There was not really a special pipeline set up, but this spot definitely combined that aesthetic of photo-real and design driven work. Everyone was pushing for a look that was a bit fantasy but never too far removed from reality that there was a disconnect. We did encounter some hurdles with 3D crowd simulations and had to come up with a way to get the crowd of people to chase the car with a very specific trajectory and mannerisms. In the end we hand animated most of the people.