New York-based art and technology company The Artery is in the process of expanding its talent base by seeking top digital artists worldwide. Its most recent addition: VFX technical director Ronen Tanchum, who has been named head of The Artery’s newly launched virtual reality/augmented reality division, as Creative and Technical Director.
The announcement was made by Deborah Sullivan, Executive Producer and Managing Director of The Artery. The company, which has recently created visuals for Sony Pictures Classics’ Norman, the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards and new Netflix series The Get Down, has launched the VR/AR division to create original content for this new global market with enormous potential.
“VR today stands at just the tip of the iceberg,” says Tanchum. “Before VR came along, we were just observers, and controlled our worlds through a mouse and a keyboard. Through the VR medium, humans become active participants in the virtual world – we get to step into our own imaginations with a direct link to our brains for the first time, experiencing the first impressions of a virtual world. As creators, VR offers us a very powerful tool by which to present a unique new experience.”
Prior to joining The Artery, Tanchum produced complex FX setups and oversaw the development of digital tools for a variety of blockbuster feature films, including Deadpool, Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Happy Feet 2, TMNT: Out of the Shadows, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Wolverine.
“The first thing I ask a potential new client who wants to create a VR experience is, ‘Why VR? What is the role of VR in your story?’ Coming from our long experiences in the CG world by working on highly demanding creative visual projects, we at The Artery have evolved our collective knowledge and developed a strong pipeline into this new VR platform,” Tanchum continues. “We are using it to its fullest to tell stories. We inform our clients that VR shouldn’t be created just because it’s ‘cool.’ The new VR platform should be used to play an integral part of the storyline itself – a well crafted VR experience should embellish and complement the story. We pride ourselves in our ‘story first’ approach to this new platform.”
