Cinesite Studios Vancouver (formerly Nitrogen Studios Canada, Inc.) is a CGI animation production company located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is run by husband and wife team, Greg Tiernan and Nicole Stinn. Nicole was President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Greg was the Chief Creative Officer (CCO). They provided over 1,000 minutes from the twelfth series and then animated all Thomas & Friends specials and series until the sixteenth series in 2012, despite some footage of their animation being used until the eighteenth series, such as the intro, credits, and the Roll Call.
Nitrogen Studios was purchased by Cinesite Studios in March 2017.
The studio also had several models originally used to film the series before the production was converted to CGI, that were used as references for many CGI renders. Eventually, most of the models were later moved to the Hara Model Railway Museum in Japan or back to Mattel in storage after the franchise transferred to Arc Productions, later known as Jam Filled Toronto.
Staff
Greg Tiernan- Series Director
Nicole Stinn- Series Producer
Arlyn Bantog- Production Manager
Kevin Pavlovic- Editor
Ellery Van Dooyeweert- Assistant Editor
Boris Andreev- Art Director (2008-2010)
Other Work
They provided animation for the films, "Happily N'Ever After", "Sausage Party", "The Addams Family", "The Addams Family 2", "Arkie" and the "Roxy Hunter" movies. They also worked on the television series' "Dan Vs." and "Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia".
Controversy
Several days after the release of Sausage Party, allegations of poor treatment of Nitrogen Studios employees surfaced in the comments section of an interview with Greg Tiernan and co-director Conrad Vernon, featured on the website Cartoon Brew.
Various anonymous posters, claiming to be animators who worked on the film in question, made various statements that Nitrogen forced them to work overtime for free and that some employees were threatened with termination.
One poster stated that Tiernan had developed a reputation for "disturbing behavior and abusive management style". Publications such as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Film have picked up the story.
Models formerly on display
- Thomas (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Edward (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Henry (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Gordon (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- James (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Percy (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Toby (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Duck
- Oliver (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Emily (sent to the Explore the Rails Exhibition)
- Murdoch
- Spencer
- Molly (sent to Drayton Manor)
- Stanley
- Salty
- 'Arry and Bert
- Rheneas (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Rusty (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Annie and Clarabel (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Henrietta (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Toad
- Rocky (sent to Drayton Manor)
- A mail van
- A fuel tanker
- A green express coach
- A red express coach
- One of Emily's coaches
- Harold (sent to Hara Model Railway Museum)
- Sir Topham Hatt's Car
- Cranky (sent to Drayton Manor)
- Sir Topham Hatt (large scale model)
- Maithwaite
- Kellsthorpe Road signal box
- A cattle truck (Märklin and Tenmille)
