Cinesite

Foundation

Cinesite opened its doors in Los Angeles in 1991 to help with the digital restoration of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The restoration was released in 1993, and Cinesite opened a division in London in 1994. There, it originally operated as a service bureau for Kodak's Cineon digital film system. Both locations subsequently evolved to become full service visual effects facilities. In 2003, Kodak merged the Cinesite Hollywood office into LaserPacific.

In May 2012, Kodak sold Cinesite to a UK-based private investor. Current ownership is a combination of its existing management team supported by private investment.

International growth

After Cinesite became independent from Kodak in 2012, it began a sustained period of international growth.

In January 2014, with the support of Investissement Québec, Cinesite announced its opening of 27,000 sq ft studios in Montréal and a feature animation division at that location. Its initial employment target was reached 18 months early, in August 2015.

In July 2015, Cinesite announced its acquisition of Vancouver-based visual effects facility Image Engine, which has won Emmy awards for its visual effects on The Book of Boba Fett and Game of Thrones and also received an Academy Award nomination for District 9 in 2010.

In March 2017, it acquired Vancouver-based animation studio Nitrogen Studios and in August 2018 the German VFX studio TRIXTER.

In June 2018, Cinesite was placed in the annual Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 league table, which ranks the UK's highest performing private firms by international growth.

In 2022, the company announced a series of further acquisitions, beginning with Montreal-based L'Atelier Animation in July which had produced animated films and television series since 2012. Squeeze Studios followed in early August, Balkan-based visual effects studio FX3X later that month and in November, Assemblage Entertainment in Mumbai. In May 2023, Cinesite would purchase a majority stake in Andy Serkis' motion capture production studio The Imaginarium.

In May 2023, Cinesite agreed to invest in The Imaginarium Studios, a Performance Capture and Virtual Production company with facilities at Pinewood Studios in the UK and at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.