The E-Trade babies have become familiar and loveable characters in our homes over the last year. The adorable, and somewhat mature babies guide us through a series of informative spots making home trading seemingly kids play. We managed to track down long-time THINKFLAME.com writer and friend John Budion, Sr. Flame Artist over at Click 3X, New York, to run us through the latest spots, his techniques and approach to this project of directing kids and doing some pretty serious lip syncing! 

 Leading visual effects software developer, The Foundry, whose software products have been used to make many of the past year’s biggest motion pictures, today announced a management buyout for an undisclosed sum led by Advent Venture Partners. We caught up with Bill Collis (CEO) and Simon Robinson (Chief Scientist) of The Foundry to find out exactly what this entails and, most importantly, how it will affect their development program in the future…

 Fuel Sydney have recently completed the new campaign for Leggo’s tomato paste. Directed by Bruce Hunt through Revolver, the spots show the lengths that Leggo’s will go to in creating their tomato paste. We managed to catch up with the VFX Supervisor and Lead Flame Artist Angus Wilson for a chat about exploding tomatoes, phantom camera, some tricky fluid dynamics...   ...oh yes and Flame!

A new era of collaboration has arrived, as the launch of an innovative visual effects company showed in New York this week. TANQ, the brainchild of leading Flame artist Alex Catchpoole and his producer wife Mary-Joy Lu, looks set to shake up the world of post-production. Combining a mobile Flame unit with the co-founders’ skills and experience, it has created a new working model of accessible yet streamlined teamwork. THINKFLAME.com caught up with Alex & Mary-Joy to find out a little bit more about their revolutionary new approach...

The acquisition is part of GenArts’ aggressive growth strategy fueled by last year’s investment by Insight Venture Partners of New York. CEO Katherine Hays took the reins in June, 2008 and announced her intent to accelerate the company’s growth via acquisitions and strategic partnerships. We took some time to catch up with Katherine to find out a little more about the acquisition and to ask what the future holds for the artists who rely on these sparks as part of their daily tool sets.