California-based visual-effects companies have had an increasingly difficult time competing with companies in Canada, Britain and India that benefit from tax credits or cheaper labor to produce visual effects at a lower cost.
In a further blow to Southern California’s visual-effects industry, Sony Pictures Imageworks is moving its Los Angeles-area headquarters to Vancouver, Canada.
The unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment said Thursday it was transferring the bulk of its operations to a new facility in Vancouver, where it already has a satellite studio.
Sony is expected to keep a small staff in its Culver City facility, which employs about 270 workers.
The move will allow the company to cut costs by capitalizing on generous tax breaks that aren’t available in California.
Film companies operating in British Columbia, the province in which Vancouver is located, can recoup as much as 60% of what they spend on local labor costs. Those incentives have made Vancouver a major hub for film and TV production, as well as visual-effects work.
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