Base Media Founder and CEO Christopher Bremble’s career in the film industry began in 1994 at USC's School of Cinema Television, where he received an MFA in screenwriting. His 1998 short film The Clock (writer, producer) was selected for competition in Cannes International Film Festival. In 2000, Christopher made the transition from writer to writer/director with the film Rockets’ Red Glare; the project was one of the first TV features to utilize sophisticated visual effects completed by a team of freelance artists from ILM, Tippet, and Boss Studios. His second film as Director brought him to Beijing, where he founded Base FX to complete the visual effects for the film, in 2005.
In 2010 Bremble received an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Movie or Miniseries for the Company’s work on HBO’s The Pacific. The Company went on to win two additional Emmys for Boardwalk Empire and Black Sails. At the same time, Base began a Strategic Alliance with Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic, driving new opportunities into the business, working on the Star Wars and Transformers franchises, Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian series, as well as work on Marvel’s Captain America, Iron Man, and Avengers franchises and the Agent Carter series. In Mainland China, Base FX has worked with Xu Ke, Guo Fan, Jiang Wen, Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhang Ke, Ning Hao, and Raman Hui, and in the United States Michael Bay, JJ Abrahams, and John Favreau. Today, Base has over 500 staff in Beijing, Xiamen, Los Angeles, and Kuala Lumpur.
In 2016, Bremble launched Base Pictures, a production company in Beijing focused on making spectacle-driven filmed entertainment; it’s first feature film, Skyfire, opened #1 at the box office for China in December, 2019. In 2017, the Company launched Base Animation, an animation studio located in Xiamen, China; the studio’s first project, Wish Dragon, a co-production with Sony Pictures Animation, will release on January 15, 2021.
The Company is currently in production on its second animated feature, The Lord of the West, in partnership with Sunac Culture and LeVision Pictures.
Ian provided the founding capital and is a board member of Base Media. Ian became best friends with the founder, Chris Bremble, the first week of college while they listened to REM. Ian also provided the initial capital for the animation feature, Wishdragon, which will be the first theatrical release for Base Media.
Ian is the Vice Chairman for global retail investment banking at Morgan Stanley. He has been an investment banker for the past 20 years. Ian has advised clients on transformative IPOs including Michael Kors, Wingstop, Levis, and Shake Shack. He has led capital raises for entertainment companies like Topgolf. He has advised on M+A deals including the Samsonite acquisition of Tumi, the sale of Whataburger to BDT, and the sale of Family Dollar to Family Tree.
In addition to film production and retail, Ian's other great passion is the hospitality and restaurant business. He is an operating partner of No. 7 Sub with Chef Tyler Kord and the cocktail bar Weather Up with Kathryn Weatherup and Matthew Maddy.
Ian graduated from The University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School of Business) and Fordham Law School. He is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive status). Ian clerked for the Honorable Kevin Thomas Duffy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ian has run the New York City Marathon twice.
Before entering visual effects industry, Mr. Neil Xie had worked many years in government and FIEs in China, with extensive experience in investment promotion and themed entertainment industry.
Neil stepped into film & TV visual effects industry in 2003, joining hands with the first generation of Chinese VFX artists to work on international film & TV projects, dedicated to building the best visual effects team in China. In 2006, he assisted Chris Bremble in founding Base FX and became one of the core leaders, turning a small team of 12 people into the largest in China and the top VFX and animation company across Asia. This continuous endeavor has lasted for more than a dozen years and witnessed Base FX’s successful wins of 3 Emmys and two nominations of Oscar. Neil also participated in the growth of China’s VFX industry as a company executive.
Neil currently works as the vice president at Base FX. He also played an active role in the founding of CPPA (China Post Production Alliance) and serves as vice president. Over the years, Neil has spent rigorous efforts to facilitate healthy development of the industry by pushing for better communication and resource integration both inside and outside the VFX community.
Prior to joining Base Media as CFO in 2020, Ben holds positions in KPMG, Sunac China, Suniverse Entertainment and has extensive experience in risk control, corporate financial management and related fields.
During his tenure at Suniverse Entertainment from 2017 to 2020, he has participated in the financial management of a series of well-known credits including The Great Wall, Boonie Bears:Blast Into The Past and Shadow.
Ben holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the School of International Economics, China Foreign Affairs University.
Joined Base in 2014, Maggie’s 10 years professional working experience in human resources and worked as HR Supervisor for over 5 years. She obtained very good knowledge in Chinese labour law and good at providing effective suggestions to both of the management and the employees and solve the problem according to the laws vs. actual conditions. She’s also very strategic thinking, with sound comprehensive management capacities and multi-parties collaboration skills. Maggie started her career life in 2004 after graduated from Chengdu University of Technology. Before joining Base, she serviced for several types of companies across several industries including environmental protection, consulting service and new energy.
Sissi Cheng currently is the Vice President of Animation at Base FX. She holds a master degree from ECNU and a bachelor degree from Fudan University. As an operational management professional, Sissi served for several multinational companies such as Intel and Autodesk during her 14 years of experience.
Sissi started her career in movie industry from 2013 and she was one of the founding members in Oriental DreamWorks (currently Pearl Studio) as well as Huayi Brother and helped these two companies well set up the animation studio from scratch. Sissi joined Base-FX in 2017 as the Head of Operations when the company started to build up the animation as a new business division in Xiamen. Her expertise successfully helped the animation studio build up a world class level team according to the needs of the company's business vision.
Sailash is a qualified Chartered Accountant and brings 15 years of audit, client relationship, and people development experience.
Prior to joining Base, Sailash served as a Group Director and Founder of Vaersa Partners, a financial advisory services firm that serves public listed companies, organizations in the public sector, and SME corporations, across all industries.
Sailash is responsible primarily for overseeing the operations and reporting of our Administration, HR, Training, and Finance departments. In addition, he works with the Production, IT, and Pipeline leadership to make sure they have the tools to drive a successful business.
Dato’ Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib was appointed as Deputy Director General of FINAS from 1st January 2017 to 15th January 2019. His attachment with FINAS is to develops, implements and drives strategic plans, programs and initiatives that will provide opportunities for Malaysia Film and Creative companies to expand, diversify or optimize their business planning parameters, whether through wider access to markets, both traditional and non-traditional, and or targeted exploitation of their assets, services and facilities to meet Sales (local and export) KPI for Malaysia. Under his preview with FINAS includes getting foreign investment into Malaysia through Film in Malaysia Incentives, initiate collaboration with international partners such as HBO, Fox and Netflix, and implement strategic program to increase the market share for local film sales in Malaysian cinema.
Prior to this appointment, he helmed as Senior Director, Commercialization Division in FINAS from 2015 to 2017.
Azmir Saifuddin was with MDeC for 17 years. From 2014 to 2015, he holds position as Senior Manager managing and implementing strategic development programs. His responsibilities in MDeC is to grow MSC Status companies in the Sectors and Sub-Sectors under the Creative Division’s accountability, ensuring economies of scale and synergies across the Animation, Games, Digital Comics, Mobile Content and Applications, Visual Effects and other new media sectors.
Currently Dato’ Azmir hold position as General Manager-Corporate Communication and Government Affairs at Frequency Production Sdn Bhd Frequency, strategic partner of BASE-FX Beijing and BASE Digital Kuala Lumpur
Tony has had more than 20 year experience in service outsourcing management in China and abroad. He owned 17 years of study and work experience in Japan and the United States.
He earned a doctor degree in Material Engineering in Muroran Institute of Technology, a master degree in Computer Science in California State University, Long Beach, and a bachelor degree on Polymer material in East China University of Science and Technology. Tony published several papers in international well-known engineering science journals and owned more than 10 patents and software copyrights.
Prior to joining Base in 2015, he served in iSoftStone, Taiwan LITEON Group, IBM, Fuji Automation.
