TORONTO and VANCOUVER — Toronto-based animation production company Wow! Unlimited announced Monday its Mainframe Studios division in Vancouver has successfully transitioned to a work-from-home model for its entire 400-plus studio crew, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“While Wow!’s primary concerns at this time are the health and well-being of its employees, the company’s business operations remain focused on executing on client commitments and implementing additional measures to limit any disruption as much as possible,” reads the news release. The company says it has been working closely with partners such as DreamWorks, Mattel and Silvergate Media and has continued to maintain quotas and produce its work uninterrupted through March.
Mainframe Studios was able to send its employees home to work because of its prior creation of what it calls the “Global Studio Pipeline” in 2018, which allows the studio to work on a variety of different projects with partners worldwide, explains the release. As a result of its Global Studio Pipeline, Mainframe has created a virtual studio with remote workstations to allow employees to collaborate no matter where they are.
Mainframe successfully deployed its work-from-home model for all of its studio crew within a week, says the release. The studio plans to adapt its work-from-home production setup beyond the current crisis, to expand its production capacity over its current 400-plus employees, without having to lease additional facilities, the company says.
“At a time when many businesses have been forced to close, we are all very fortunate to have this ability to work from home and to continue to do the amazing work we do as a studio. In the absence of playdates and outings, the content we create for kids has an important function: to put a smile on kids’ faces, to make them laugh, and to hopefully let them forget what is going on in the world for a moment. If our shows do that, then we have succeeded,” said Michael Hefferon, Mainframe’s president and chief creative officer, in the news release.
