San Rafael, Calif. – In a second round of restructuring since its spin-off last year from Lucasfilm, THX Ltd. laid off an unspecified number of employees but will replace some people and create new positions to bring staffing levels back up to a similar level, said marketing director Ann Brighouse.
New faces will be brought in ‘on an orderly basis based on budgets and where we see the opportunities,’ she said. Although she declined to specify the number of full-time and contract employees who were laid off, she said the number was more than 10 and below 20 and ‘does not represent a massive chunk of the company.’
The restructuring doesn’t represent ‘a shift in quality standards, and the focus of our business remains the same,’ Brighouse said. THX continues to view its biggest opportunities in the movie theater, home audio, and studio industries, she said. In its studio services business, however, THX decided to drop out of one service: checking the quality of film prints distributed to movie theaters. It will continue to assure the quality of film transfers to DVD.
In other previously announced recent changes, THX hired a new GM, Ivan Fujihara, and a new sales VP, Ross Portugeis.
In mid-2002 following its spin-off, THX realigned its engineering and sales departments into five self-contained organizations, each focused on a single industry, with a single marketing staff supporting all five industries: movie theaters, mastering and reproduction industries, home technologies, autosound, and console gaming. Under the spin-off, Lucasfilm became one of several investors in its former THX division The other investors included several unnamed individuals and Creative Technology. No investor obtained a controlling share.
