Blog: Eric Bruneau

Eric Bruneau is the executive vice president and creative director of Armstrong White. An Academy Award nominated computer animator, Eric is also an entrepreneur and award winning digital creative director. He'll be writing about why Metro Detroit is full of opportunities for people in his field.

Post No. 3

Market growth for CGI is increasing at an aggressive pace. It is anticipated that the market will grow at a 10-to15% rate for the next five years. In part it is due to new content distribution channel with the web and a better understanding of the use and repurposing of assets.

Clients that build products with CAD data can repurpose this asset to create CGI animations and still images. By using these assets, client can introduce products and campaigns much earlier to market. This can have significant impact with competition and presales. The use of CGI is limitless, from automotive to consumer products to medical procedures and pharmaceutical. 

The opportunity for the Detroit community to become a major player within the entertainment specialty market is very real. There are more productions than ever coming from LA and NY where they are the dominant markets.

The Detroit marketplace is currently supporting between $35 and $45 million in revenue strictly from CGI production. With this continued growth market, Detroit community has an opportunity to look at ways to market CGI production to new markets throughout the country.

By the creation of a marketing campaign, the Detroit community in cooperation with local production companies has the opportunity to grow this niche market much larger than current predictions. With the formulation of a board that would oversee marketing dollars from local, region and state funding creating a new business core within the community will create new job opportunities.

We can also look at ways of attractive new business that is a derivative of CGI such as gaming companies. This can become one solution for maintain recent graduates within the Detroit community.

Another reason for developing this sector of the business is, there is currently a world-renowned education infrastructure within the community that specializes in the training of future graduates in computer animation. By continuing to develop our current infrastructure, the D can develop new core business that can attract younger generation to this great community.