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The past decade has been a challenging—and transformative—period for the visual effects (VFX) industry, working behind the scenes to bring movies and TV to audiences while weathering multiple economic storms. So it’s heartwarming to hear about a VFX studio that’s not just surviving but thriving. Meet Korea’s Dexter Studios. Even as production timelines have shrunk and workloads have increased as more productions use CGI to augment visuals, the company’s continual pursuit of innovation has led the field, and it’s expanding even more.
Since launching in 2012, Dexter Studios now has eight business divisions employing over 300 people, the most recent addition being the 2021 launch of its virtual production facility, D1 Studio. Dexter’s chief strategy officer Hyejin Kim says the company is the only “total content creation” studio in Korea, with VFX, digital intermediate, virtual production, sound design, and production all under one roof.
Dexter’s work has been featured in the Palme d’Or and in the Oscar-winning film Parasite. It was the only publicly traded VFX provider when it listed on the Korean stock exchange in 2015—a feat for any business in the film industry that isn’t a Hollywood studio. In 2024, Dexter Studios was also named Media & Entertainment Innovator of the Year at Autodesk’s Design & Make Awards—a first for an Asian company.
Dexter Studios made its name working on a 2013 adventure film called Mr. Go, featuring a baseball-playing gorilla that the company’s nascent workforce of artists conceived and executed entirely in-house.
“At that time, it was really difficult, very challenging in the Korean VFX industry, to do all the work by ourselves,” Kim says. “But the first generation of Korean VFX artists just made the common goal to achieve it. They just tried their best and made it happen.”
Though the box office results weren’t anything to write home about, the film gave Dexter Studios a certain level of industry recognition and an unshakeable philosophy to not be afraid of new challenges. After all, it had already made a gorilla play baseball.
Mr. Go was followed by a movie called The Pirates, which contained a lot of CGI water simulations. That led to the Along with the Gods film series, which let the company reach new heights and explore themes about its national character. Set in several afterlife worlds, Dexter’s work on the film’s VFX referenced Asian and Buddhist beliefs about life after death.
The project called for seven different digital worlds and—as new divisions were shaping up—exposed the company’s artists to many new environments and the methods needed to create them.
The workload since then has only increased, and to keep so many artists productive and happy, a management structure had to be developed. In some cases, that meant building bespoke tools and platforms, like VELOZ, Dexter’s proprietary software pipeline. Using VELOZ, and integrating Autodesk Maya and OpenUSD across their creative workflows, Dexter Studios reduced their shot work time by 50%.
Kim says the company is also constantly exploring and ramping up best practice methods in digital humans, 3D scanning/photogrammetry, performance capture, and aging/de-aging. Much like executives from across other Design and Make industries, she’s both excited and circumspect about artificial intelligence (AI).
“We don’t think AI could replace our roles, but it can help us make routine tasks more efficient,” she says. “For example, AI can draw a lot of concept art within just a few hours, unlike our artists’ long days working.” With the studio taking on more work, AI has the potential to create efficiencies that free artists to focus on their art and produce high-quality content.
Kim says Dexter intends to continue operating in that higher-quality content sandbox. But it poses a business risk in a world where content-consumption patterns are constantly changing, and not all directors, writers, and producers can secure the budgets that keep a VFX vendor’s lights on. “But, somehow, if we just keep the high quality—the things with more efficient working processes—we can survive,” she says.
Another lynchpin in Dexter Studios’ drive to flourish is a strong emphasis on R&D. And Dexter is doing it by listening to those that matter most—the company starts research based on the needs of the artists, says Kim.
A large part of that is organizing the backend infrastructure to give the artists the room and freedom to do their best work. With artists working in Maya to create animations and effects, Dexter Studios moved to integrate OpenUSD to streamline file management and cross-team data sharing. This led to the creation of VELOZ, the custom in-house automation tool to manage the pipeline.
The management system proved critical during the company’s early phase when big-budget projects started coming in not just from Korea but all over the APAC region. According to Kim, that meant Dexter Studios had to develop its own know-how about managing projects during rapid growth. They employ many project management teams—people who manage the project needs, not artists doing the VFX work—staying on top of schedules and communicating with clients.
“We think those teams are very important,” she says, “They can affect our budget and time management, and that working environment is very important for the artists.”
In an industry known for its high work demands on young, ambitious artists, the company focuses strongly on people-centric initiatives. “We have 330 artists, and it’s crucial to have a good and positive working environment,” Kim says. They have all the usual perks, like video games in the break room, but at Dexter, it goes much further. “It’s important to build teamwork because with VFX works, the main core business of our company, it’s necessary to work with others, as well—it’s not just one individual.”
The Hollywood industry—and companies that work under its auspices as far-flung as Montreal, London, and Mumbai—is known for flat rates and crushing deadlines that result in punishing hours and burnout. However, through systems such as compensatory leave, Dexter Studios adheres to Korea’s labor law, which mandates a maximum 52-hour work week. Additionally, as artists focus on maximizing productivity within the given time, the company strives to maintain a sustainable and happy work environment by ensuring a proper work-life balance through sufficient rest.
There have also been major shifts in how people consume content—and the type of content they prefer. “Many young people can’t watch two-hour films sitting in the theater,” Kim says. “Their concentration time is so reduced, they’re used to short-form videos. I see a lot of people who can’t focus on more than 30 minutes of content.”
Rather than prophesying the end of her job, Kim says that moving forward, content will come in two forms representing two very different markets. Dexter Studios intends to aim for the higher-quality end of the equation, which is evident as the company continues to grow.
In 2021, the company opened an additional studio with new facilities to expand its digital intermediate and sound services. Also in 2021, it launched a new virtual production arm. Through its subsidiary Dexter Pictures, the company is now planning and developing its own IPs. Dexter is working on a lineup of 21 projects, including a drama set to air in June 2025 on Korea’s TVN channel, which is currently in production.
Dexter is also working on a new media art project—its first B2C initiative—with plans to build its unique brand in the rapidly growing media art market. Located in the historic city of Gyeongju, Flashback Ground: Gyerim, is an immersive media art exhibition inspired by the traditional folklore of the ancient Silla Kingdom and showcasing Dexter’s expertise in storytelling and content production. The exhibition will launch in the second half of 2025, establishing itself as a new city landmark ahead of the APEC Summit taking place in Gyeongju in October.
Another subsidiary, Dexter Krema, specializes in digital new media marketing, creating opportunities for synergies within Dexter Studios’ service areas. Drawing on its expertise spanning virtual production, VFX, sound, and digital intermediate, Dexter creates advertising content tailored to diverse client needs, including traditional legacy ads, digital advertisements, outdoor advertising, and FOOH (Fake Out of Home) campaigns. This integrated approach enables Dexter Studios and its subsidiaries to collaborate more closely across various projects for different clients and audiences, fostering learning experiences that share and expand knowledge throughout the entire group.
But at the end of the day, the common principles of VFX still hold true, and Kim fully acknowledges this: Audiences often completely overlook Dexter’s best work. “Invisible VFX is often the most successful kind,” she says. “Take Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite or Netflix’s original Parasyte: The Grey, for example. Viewers become so immersed in the story that they don’t even think about the CGI or VFX behind it—they’re just engrossed in the narrative. But the reality is, there’s a significant amount of CGI involved, and for us, that’s the true mark of success.”
After growing up knowing he wanted to change the world, Drew Turney realized it was easier to write about other people changing it instead. He writes about technology, cinema, science, books, and more.
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Image courtesy of Pixomondo.
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Image © 2024 20th Century Studios, courtesy of Wētā FX.
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Image courtesy of Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.