CafeFX closes doors

Just to clarify, they were based in Santa Maria, about 45 minutes north of Santa Barbara. Jeff Barnes and David Ebner started the studio in the small farming community back in 1993 as Computer Cafe. When I got there in 1998 they were predominantly a Lightwave studio running DEC Alphas. About a year later they opened a small satellite office in Santa Monica which later evolved into a larger presence. I was the first exclusively MAX artist they hired and over 3 years found various ways to integrate into the Lightwave pipeline as an FX artist among six or seven other artists. Around 2002-2005 they increasingly added MAX to the growing company, primarily for FX animation, but it never formed the backbone of the pipeline there the way Maya and XSI displaced Lightwave. Around the same time they acquired a post house in Santa Monica, The Syndicate, which later had its own small VFX team that was primarily MAX-based. Computer Cafe became CafeFX around 2005 and tried to change the VFX model a bit (seeing how unprofitable it is) and contribute as producer on “Pan’s Labyrinth.” The studio also grew significantly, moving from a modest location next to a church to their own multi-floor building, and worked on larger shot counts as well as made a name for themselves doing character animation, a long standing goal of the studio’s. Unfortunately the downturn in the economy in 2008 severely affected the post house side of things and international competition with their huge tax incentives was making it difficult to remain profitable. In 2009 the Syndicate VFX crew wrapped “Shutter Island” and sadly was shut down with many of the artists being absorbed by CafeFX as a Santa Monica unit for work on “Alice in Wonderland.” And after that project wrapped the studio was effectively shut down.

CafeFX was a great place to get a start in the VFX biz and the core people were very good at cultivating talent. There are a number of people I know who came into their own at that place and later went on to being CG Supervisors at prestigious studios like ILM. One went from pumping gas (but showing artistic talent), working part time as a Lightwave modeler to eventually becoming Modeling Supervisor 8 years later. It’s sad to see them go…