Foundation Imaging, Inc. was a CGI visual effects studio, computer animation studio, and post-production editing facility.
| Industry | CGI visual effects studio |
|---|---|
| Defunct | December 28, 2002 |
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
Key people | Paul Beigle-Bryant and Ron Thornton (founders) |
The company was founded by Paul Beigle-Bryant and Ron Thornton. It pioneered digital imaging for television programming using Newtek's LightWave 3D, originally on Commodore Amiga based Video Toaster workstations.
The company was dissolved after work on season one of Star Trek: Enterprise[1] had been completed and the company assets were sold off in a public auction on December 17, 2002 by Brian Testo Associates, LLC.
The company's pioneering work on Babylon 5 popularized using the software package Lightwave 3D on US TV shows for CGI visual effects, which led to it becoming an industry standard throughout the 1990s.
Key animators from the company and Emmy Award-winners Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz and John Teska remain major figures in the visual effects field for their work on shows such as the rebooted Battlestar Galactica and Lost.
Foundation Imaging is best known for their work on the science fiction series Babylon 5, winning an Emmy Award for the pilot episode.
After completing the third season of Babylon 5,[2] they worked on Paramount's Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ultimately winning two more Emmy Awards for their work on Voyager).
Foundation Imaging made the exterior views rendered by computer graphics for the Delta Flyer shuttlecraft, from drawings by Rick Sternbach, debuting on Voyager in the "Extreme Risk".[3] They also did the CGI views of the Varro generation ship in the episode "The Disease" for example.[4]
The company also worked on Robert Wise's director's cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This was one of Foundation Imaging's last projects before they shut down. Lebowitz also worked with Paramount Plus on the film's 2022 restoration.
While working on Star Trek, the company provided CG visuals for the Warner Brothers direct-to-video animated movies based on the Batman: The Animated Series TV series.
During the show's first season, Ronald B. Moore worked with CG effects houses Eden FX and Foundation Imaging