Jake Maymudes 1/6/26 Jake Maymudes 1/6/26

WHAT IT TAKES FOR SMALLER VFX STUDIOS TO SURVIVE – AND THRIVE

Headquartered in Culver City, California, Wylie Co. specializes in previs, postvis and visual effects for film and episodic. “Visual effects are so nuanced and complicated, but you’re still serving the subjective thing,” states Jake Maymudes, CEO & COO at Wylie Co. “You try to make it to order and hand it to the client. Then they can say, ‘It’s too blue or dark or light, change the animation.’ A lot of times, the company has to incur the costs of this very subjective thing they’re selling. It’s complicated and hard. In 2024, we lost money for the first time in 10 years, but this year we’re making money.” The actors’ strike had a substantial impact. Maymudes remarks, “It was a real hit to the industry. It’s still finding its feet. It was a big reset in the content. As far as visual effects is concerned, it could have been the combination of after the strike and Marvel at the same time realizing they made too [many films] because their slate has come way down.” AI and machine learning have become significant disrupters. “If you really dig in, the outcome could be, you film an entire feature film on an iPhone or something really small and run it through an AI post process to give it that epic Hollywood look and feel.”