Outpost VFX has recruited Paul Francis to the newly created role of chief technology officer ahead of the company’s expansion later this year.

The Bournemouth VFX facility plans to double its capacity during the fourth quarter of the year with “vastly increased” render and storage capacity.

Outpost VFX chief executive Duncan McWilliam said: “We are all very happy that Paul has joined Outpost VFX, his experience and knowledge will be invaluable as the company continues to expand. 

“He will be taking us forward in developing our GPU render pipeline, data lab and further expansion to 30 more workstations bringing us to 80 available workstations in the next three months.”

Francis previously worked as a developer, including a stint on a VR project for Outpost.

His first task in his new role was to successfully navigate Outpost VFX through the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) auditors accreditation for Universal.

Francis added: “As CTO I’m required to oversee and maintain all of the IT infrastructure and am also responsible for researching future technologies that can improve on our already spectacular CPU/GPU render farms, distributed rendering, and software solutions that keep our hugely talented team of artists working as efficiently as possible, and ultimately keep us competitive.”