Psyop Brings 20 Independent Studios Together Under New Media Group

Global animation and mixed-media production company Psyop has launched Psyop Independent Media Group, a new creative network that brings together 20 independent studios working across animation, live-action, design, mixed media, AI, and entertainment production.

The initiative formalizes a partnership structure that Psyop says is designed to connect specialized creative companies while simplifying production pipelines for clients through a centralized leadership and operational system. Initial partners include Baillat, CRCR, Daisy Chain Extraweg, Hyperculture, Igor + Valentine, Illogic, Le Cube, Meat Dept., Patagraph, Psyop, Remus + Kiki, Shotopop, someform, Studio Showoff, Sun Creature, Take Your Medicine, Temple Caché, and Vallée Duhamel, with more to be announced later this month.

Put simply, what Psyop is pitching is a centralized production network comprised of independent creative studios across multiple disciplines. Instead of a brand or agency hiring separate vendors for animation, live-action, design, VFX, AI tools, branding, and strategy, Psyop wants clients to come through one umbrella organization that can assemble the right mix of partner studios for a project.

The company is framing this as an alternative to traditional holding-company structures and fragmented freelance/vendor pipelines. In the company’s release, the group is pitched like a talent and production collective with a shared business infrastructure; centralized client management and strategy on one side, and a loose federation of specialized, independent studios on the other.

In a release, Psyop CEO Matt Hunnicutt elaborated:

The industry is changing rapidly, and the need for new creative production models has never been greater as we bring together 20 studios across a range of disciplines to form a first-of-its-kind global network of independent craft experts able to collaborate across mixed media arts. In a world of holding companies and private equity, we want to support and celebrate the passion of independent talent, connecting the world’s best artists with the latest technology to form a next-generation studio collective.

According to the company, the network is anchored by Psyop’s longtime commercial and animation studio operations and includes partner studios and teams spanning New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montreal, Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Melbourne.

Hunnicut also explained:

For our clients, the ability to plug into an interconnected studio system with an upstream architecture represents incredible value and access to a depth of expertise across a breadth of services from artful live action, mixed media, brand design, and animation to artist-authored AI pipelines and autonomous character agents — one call, a world of talent.

The company’s leadership team includes executives with backgrounds at Wieden+Kennedy, Nike, Meta, Google, Squarespace, Tribeca, and Doodles.