MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. -- Nimble Collective has joined forces with talent provider Zerply to develop a cloud-based production platform to streamline performance and plug into an elite pool of high-skilled animation professionals.

The animation and visual effects industry has experienced a major market shift over the past decade where the number of contract workers has grown from 20 percent to 70 percent of creative talent. This has created major challenges for production studios given the time it takes to recruit, hire and manage on-location contract talent that Nimble and Zerply aim to solve.

“The world of work is changing and we are responding by integrating talent sourcing into our mix,” says Rex Grignon, co-founder and CEO of Nimble Collective. “By partnering with Zerply, we are giving studios the opportunity to tap into a vast network of top creative talent so they can bring their creativity to life.”

Founded in 2014, Nimble Collective is the brainchild of animators from Toy Story, Madagascar, Lord of the Rings, Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon -- industry veterans from DreamWorks, Pixar and Google. Nimble is developing a studio-ready cloud-based production pipeline and offers animation production teams an entire animation studio infrastructure available via browser -- including cloud-based workstations, storage and professional workflow.

Staffed by a team of expert creators with a deep love of storytelling, Nimble focuses on empowering studios and storytellers with a location-independent platform to eliminate the challenges of complex infrastructure. With Nimble, animation teams can get more work done faster, at a higher quality and at a lower cost.

“In the coming years, creative talent will be hired remotely and on a flexible contract basis,” says James Bennett, Zerply co-founder and CEO. “Zerply’s technology connects production managers to a global pool of available, vetted professionals for creative opportunities. Our platform bridges the gap between creative talent and creative companies so teams not only hire more quickly, they visually track the flow of talent as they enter and exit the market.”

Zerply brings a community of 15,000 vetted professional creatives with experience working on such films, shows and video games as Black Panther, Doctor Strange, The Shape of Water, Game of Thrones and Star Wars: Battlefront.

Source: Nimble Collective, Zerply