The Mill (company)

The Mill is a VFX & Creative Content studio headquartered in London, England, with three offices in the United States. The Mill is known for visual effects, moving image, design and digital projects for the advertising, games and music industries.

Founding
In 1990, Robin Shenfield and Pat Joseph opened The Mill in Soho, London. Starting as a visual effects house for the advertising industry, it was the first VFX company in Europe to use exclusively digital methods.

Global Operations
2002 saw The Mill open a studio in New York, becoming the first UK visual effects house to do so. The extension of operations to the US was successful, with the company growing to employ over 100 staff by 2009.

Following the success of this studio, The Mill was launched in Los Angeles in 2007 – the first UK visual effects house to open on the West Coast – and once again, the new venture was highly successful.

In 2013 The Mill opened an office in Chicago, sharing its premises with editorial house The Whitehouse in the landmark Courthouse Place building.

Ownership
In 2011 The Mill was acquired by The Carlyle Group, who then sold it to Barclays Private Equity (later rebranded as Equistone Partners Europe). On 15 September 2015, Technicolor SA acquired The Mill for €259 million from Equistone.

Offerings
The Mill is involved in a range of visual effects and design projects in the commercial, gaming and music industries. The company's supervisors, producers and artists support all stages of production, from pre-visualisation and conceptual artwork, shoot supervision, 3D, 2D and colour grading through to delivery of the finished project.

Expanded Offerings
Beam.tv was launched in 2002 as an online digital delivery and content management platform. Beam was originally established as an in-house FTP process to allow clients to review and approve visual-effects work being completed by The Mill in London. AdText.tv is launched in 2008 for commercial subtitling.

Mill+ launched in 2013 as a creative studio focusing on motion graphics, design and animation.

Awards

 * Film and Television

In addition to film and television, The Mill has won or been nominated for numerous awards, both national and international, in the advertising industry.
 * Advertising
 * British Arrows Craft Awards
 * Cannes Lions Awards
 * Clio Awards
 * Creative Circle Awards
 * D&AD Awards
 * Eurobest European Advertising Festival
 * London International Awards
 * Visual Effects Society Awards