Beautiful Concept Art and Pre-Production Material from Scrapped The Legend of Tembo

It's a rough time for the animation and VFX industry as of late: DreamWorks are having to make massive cut backs; Rhythm & Hues, on the back of countless awards for their work on Life of Pi, including a BAFTA, have filed for bankruptcy. An earlier woe, though, came in September of last year, when Digital Domain ran into a whole host of financial problems, culminating in the shuttering of their animation division, Tradition Studios, and thus the unscrupulous demise of their first in-production animated feature, The Legend of Tembo.

Digital Domain's Tradition Studios Shuts Down

News broke today that VFX house Digital Domain's recently founded animation department, Tradition Studios, has closed its doors. Citing DDMG's (Digital Domain Media Group, Inc.) growing financial troubles, the closure of Tradition Studios means 300+ staff will be laid off and production on, what was to be their first animated film, The Legend of Tembo has been halted.

Check out the story after the jump break!

Brad Lewis Moving

It was announced today that Brad Lewis, the co-director of Cars 2, is leaving Pixar and joining Tradition Studios, the recently opened animation department of Digital Domain.

Digital Domain, partly owned by Transformers director, Michael Bay, is a visual effects company that recently handled effects on Disney's Tron: Legacy. The company set up an animation subsidiary in Florida back in 2009 and is currently awaiting the completion of a 115,00 square-foot campus, scheduled to open in December.

The producer of Pixar's 2007 Academy Award winning feature, Ratatouille, has been at Pixar for ten years now, after spending over eleven years at PDI and DreamWorks Animation, where he produced Antz.

Lewis, who is set to be a director at Tradition Studios, said to The Hollywood Reporter:

“I am excited to join a company with Digital Domain's talent and expertise and to have an opportunity to be a part of its team in creating family-friendly stories and adventures.”

Lewis will surely be missed at Pixar and will be a huge asset to Digital Domain.