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Omnibus
Established Date: Jan. 1, 1982
- All
- pioneer
- Scanimate
- production
- software
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Omnibus Computer Graphics Inc. was started in early 1982 with W. Kelly Jarmain as Chairman and J.C. Pennie as President and CEO.
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CGM - Episode 11 - Explorers + Yng Sherlock Holmes -
"I remember walking in past reception to where the animators worked. There was Eric Ladd hunched over a massive drafting table. He was digitizing by hand the x, y, and z coordinates of a horse. Someone had drawn about five sectional slices of a horse on 4 foot by 3 foot graph paper, one slice per paper. Eric was calculating the x,y values from the grid and was writing down the coordinates on a piece of paper, later typing them …
"My first day on the job" -
Omnibus/LA (which was now majority-owned by Santa Clara-based Ramtek) hired David Sieg from Image West as VP of R&D and a team of programmers from CalTech working with Al Barr, Brian Von Herzen, and many others. In addition to developing its own software (called Prisms), Omnibus obtained several exclusive software license agreements with Robert Abel & Associates and Triple-I. (The deal with Abel originally was signed to last seven years, the Triple-I deal until the year 2001. This is a …
Omnibus LA -
The first feature film contract Omnibus worked on was for Paramount Pictures' Star Trek III. Omnibus (one of three companies to contribute effects) created a number of video graphics displays seen on the bridge of the Enterprise and Klingon starships. About 30 to 40 computer-generated video clips comprised almost an hour's worth of imagery. Artists included Technical Director Dan Krech and Animator Dan Philips.
Star Trek III -
In June of 1986, Omnibus bought Digital Productions. Omnibus was approached by the Digital Productioons majority owner Control Data, which was desperate to get out from under the increasing debt of DP. In September of that same year, Omnibus also bought Robert Abel & Associates for $6.5 million. Abel likewise was on the verge of bankruptcy and was led to believe that Omnibus was a legitimate bid from a publicly held and stable company. The management at Omnibus saw the …
DOA -
"The Omnibus management knew nothing about computer animation but kept muttering about 'Economies of Scale.' The reality was: three separate sales forces, three separate production crews, three separate facilities, philosophies, software systems, and hardware systems, none of which were likely to ever work together. What is ironic is that the next Star Trek movie was about to go into production and had tons of CGI work in it. We had good contacts with the right people, and we did some …
The work that could have saved us .. -
In early 1987, with a debt of about $25 million, Omnibus defaulted on investments and closed Abel, DP, and Omnibus on April 13, 1987. An Omnibus Japan still exists today and uses the 3D Omnibus orb logo. www.omnibusjp.com
The End -
Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic purchased the rights to the Prisms source code and started Side Effects Productions, which later became Side Effects Software.
Side Effects birth -
The NYIT TWEEN system was acquired and used by animator Robert Marinic (later a TD at ILM), one of eight employees at the time.
TWEEN -
The Omnibus Group Inc. began as a group of Canadian companies in marketing and communication founded in London, Ontario, in 1972. It expanded with affiliated and shareholding offices in Toronto (Omnibus Video Inc.), Los Angeles (Image West Limited & Downstream-Keyer Inc.), and Sydney, Australia (The Picture Company). John C. Pennie joined in 1974 as President. Image West was developed by Omnibus beginning in 1975 and was located in Hollywood, California. Omnibus Video Inc., started in 1981, was headed by President …
Corporate history -
In 1983, they installed a DEC VAX 11/750 and produced the first CG commercial in?Canada. In 1983, an IPO (which raised $4.2 million) made Omnibus the first publicly traded CG?company. The plan was to expand and operate three main facilities: Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles. The original Toronto location was for computer operations and for Canadian broadcast and agency work. Its production group was run by Dan Philips (later head of CG production at?Dreamworks). The New York facility, for …
In the beginning ... -
Omnibus demo reel - 1985 -
CGM Interviews - 01 - Dave Sieg -
Logo -
David Sieg -
Image West -
Dan Philips -
Kevin Tureski
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Side Effects Software
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DOA
"My first day on the job"
"I remember walking in past reception to where the animators worked. There was Eric Ladd hunched over a massive drafting table. He was digitizing by hand the x, y, and z coordinates of a horse. Someone had drawn about five sectional slices of a horse on 4 foot by 3 foot graph paper, one slice per paper. Eric was calculating the x,y values from the grid and was writing down the coordinates on a piece of paper, later typing them in, manually creating several .ppt files. There was no digitizing tablet to be found anywhere. Later, on a tour of the edit suite, I saw Mike Johnson feeding paper tape containing the boot program through the ESS, a still store capable of holding 30 seconds of video on its RK05 disks."
Omnibus LA
Omnibus/LA (which was now majority-owned by Santa Clara-based Ramtek) hired David Sieg from Image West as VP of R&D and a team of programmers from CalTech working with Al Barr, Brian Von Herzen, and many others. In addition to developing its own software (called Prisms), Omnibus obtained several exclusive software license agreements with Robert Abel & Associates and Triple-I. (The deal with Abel originally was signed to last seven years, the Triple-I deal until the year 2001. This is a moot point given the abbreviated future of the companies.) To start up the Omnibus/LA facility, they bought the F1 computer system and older film printers (called PFRs) from Triple-I (which had just shut down their CG group) and started working out of the Triple-I offices in Culver City. Omnibus/LA soon moved to the Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood, sharing facilities with Unitel Video. Art Durinski was hired as Creative Director and staffed the initial dozen employees. Among these employees were a number of students from UCLA where he had been teaching.
Star Trek III
The first feature film contract Omnibus worked on was for Paramount Pictures' Star Trek III. Omnibus (one of three companies to contribute effects) created a number of video graphics displays seen on the bridge of the Enterprise and Klingon starships. About 30 to 40 computer-generated video clips comprised almost an hour's worth of imagery. Artists included Technical Director Dan Krech and Animator Dan Philips.
DOA
In June of 1986, Omnibus bought Digital Productions. Omnibus was approached by the Digital Productioons majority owner Control Data, which was desperate to get out from under the increasing debt of DP. In September of that same year, Omnibus also bought Robert Abel & Associates for $6.5 million. Abel likewise was on the verge of bankruptcy and was led to believe that Omnibus was a legitimate bid from a publicly held and stable company. The management at Omnibus saw the purchases as a way to consolidate the best of everything (and all their customers) into a single monolithic parent company. Unfortunately, nothing was as it appeared, as everyone soon found out.
The work that could have saved us ..
"The Omnibus management knew nothing about computer animation but kept muttering about 'Economies of Scale.' The reality was: three separate sales forces, three separate production crews, three separate facilities, philosophies, software systems, and hardware systems, none of which were likely to ever work together. What is ironic is that the next Star Trek movie was about to go into production and had tons of CGI work in it. We had good contacts with the right people, and we did some amazing tests (I have videotape!) of the Enterprise that blew the modelmakers away. But they were too scared Omnibus would go under to give us the contract that would have saved us."
The End
In early 1987, with a debt of about $25 million, Omnibus defaulted on investments and closed Abel, DP, and Omnibus on April 13, 1987. An Omnibus Japan still exists today and uses the 3D Omnibus orb logo. www.omnibusjp.com
Side Effects birth
Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic purchased the rights to the Prisms source code and started Side Effects Productions, which later became Side Effects Software.
TWEEN
The NYIT TWEEN system was acquired and used by animator Robert Marinic (later a TD at ILM), one of eight employees at the time.
Corporate history
The Omnibus Group Inc. began as a group of Canadian companies in marketing and communication founded in London, Ontario, in 1972. It expanded with affiliated and shareholding offices in Toronto (Omnibus Video Inc.), Los Angeles (Image West Limited & Downstream-Keyer Inc.), and Sydney, Australia (The Picture Company). John C. Pennie joined in 1974 as President. Image West was developed by Omnibus beginning in 1975 and was located in Hollywood, California. Omnibus Video Inc., started in 1981, was headed by President Jack Porter (who for 14 years was president of Sheridan College in Toronto) and was located in the Yonge-Eglinton area of Toronto, Canada.
In the beginning ...
In 1983, they installed a DEC VAX 11/750 and produced the first CG commercial in?Canada. In 1983, an IPO (which raised $4.2 million) made Omnibus the first publicly traded CG?company. The plan was to expand and operate three main facilities: Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles. The original Toronto location was for computer operations and for Canadian broadcast and agency work. Its production group was run by Dan Philips (later head of CG production at?Dreamworks). The New York facility, for video broadcast and recording, was on 57th Street West under?a lease from Unitel Video Inc. The Los Angeles location was intended primarily for motion picture film work. All three were linked by satellite by the end of 1984. (The satellite link amounted to?modems for many months and finally a WAN that was painfully slow and unreliable.) As part of the?initial expansion in mid-1984, several larger VAX 11/780 systems were installed at the Toronto?facility.
Omnibus Computer Graphics Inc. was started in early 1982 with W. Kelly Jarmain as Chairman and J.C. Pennie as President and CEO.