Jam Filled Toronto
The Toronto branch of Jam Filled Entertainment was originally established as Dan Krech Productions on June 24, 1985, as one of the first visual effects companies in Toronto. In 1987, DKP became the first company in Canada to have an in-house digital suite. DKP had produced visual effects and animation for over 2,000 commercials and long-form projects by 2000, many of them for U.S. companies. DKP moved to a new facility on Queen Street East in March 2001. American telecommunications company IDT Corporation acquired DKP Effects on March 16, 2004,[12] leading to the company being renamed DKP Studios.
On May 26, 2006, Liberty Media bought IDT Entertainment from IDT, including Anchor Bay Entertainment and Film Roman, and merged it with the Starz cable network to form Starz Media.[13] Under its new management in 2007, the studio began a "Starz Shortz" program which has produced Bundle of Joy, Enter the Sandbox, Ormie and Lovebirds.[14] In 2007, Starz Animation took over animating Shane Acker's feature 9 from Attitude Studio, Luxembourg.[15] In 2010, the studio opened a major VFX wing to create all the effects for the new Starz Channel/Graham King Productions miniseries, Camelot, Alcon Entertainment's Dolphin Tale, and producer Avi Arad's family feature, Robosapien: Rebooted.
In April 2011, Liberty Starz sold Starz Animation to a Canadian consortium, and it was renamed Arc Productions. Under the new owner, the studio was planning to do more proprietary production.[16][17][18][19]
On July 29, 2016,[20] Arc Productions entered receivership and closed down its studio, locking out 500 employees after telling them there was a payroll glitch and no one had been paid. At the time of closure, Arc had been working on the film Blazing Samurai.[21] On August 22, 2016, Jam Filled Entertainment acquired Arc's assets out of receivership, reopening its Toronto studio and rehiring most of its staff.[5][6]
