In this interview, CEO and Co-founder of Juice Adam Tunikowski reflects on Poland’s place within the international visual effects landscape, the strengths and limitations of its service-based model, and the impact of recent industry upheavals, from strikes and shrinking revenues to the rapid rise of AI.
A Poland-rooted, full-service visual effects, design, and audio company Juice has over 20 years of experience delivering a wide range of commercial and creative projects.
How would you describe Poland’s role in the global VFX industry today?
It’s a tough question because I do believe we do not have a very strong standing as a VFX industry. We have one very prominent company, Platige Image, which is by far the biggest. It has a huge impact through game cinematics, and within this realm, they’re particularly well known.
But because of all the shake-ups happening around the world – and we’ll get to that later – it’s really hard to say where Poland stands. We’re very strong on talent. Up until recently, we didn’t really have dedicated schools, which means most artists in Poland are self-taught, which can be both a good and a bad thing.
The good is that people who are self-taught are usually in it because of passion. They don’t follow standard paths, and because of that, they’re very versatile. The people I’ve met in the Polish VFX industry are often strong generalists who can do anything from simulations to shading and deliver shots themselves. They didn’t go through an educational path that narrowed their capabilities.
So I would say that Poland’s strength lies more in individuals who can do a lot of things. Obviously, they’re scattered across larger companies around the world. But in terms of clusters and hubs, I don’t think we have a lot to offer. We’re actually quite a small market.
Would you describe Poland primarily as a service hub, a creative hub, or something in between?
Definitely a service hub. We’ve been a service hub since the early 2000s. Because of the wage gap and lower living costs, it was relatively easy to build a business servicing companies around the world from Poland.
That advantage has faded over time. Salaries and the cost of living are now pretty much on par with many other European countries. It’s a pity, but it’s a normal thing that happens when countries catch up with the Western world. We do have strong education, including free higher education, which produces a lot of engineers and skilled workers. That’s one reason there’s a reasonable amount of foreign investment in Poland.
Creatively speaking, I think we have more and more to offer, but we’re still learning. There’s a lot of creativity in Poland because historically we lacked resources, infrastructure, and means. That often forces people to become inventive. And yet, despite this, there have still been great creative works in design, animation, and visual arts. Creativity is improving all the time, but service remains the dominant part of the industry.
What were some of the key shifts that drove this growth?
If we’re talking about Poland’s economic growth generally, I think it’s quite simple.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, people were incredibly eager to work. What was different about Polish people was that we were ready to work hard while other places had already become comfortable.
The 1990s were a period when everybody was hungry for capitalism and opportunity. We still had a lot of catching up to do. Given our proximity to Western Europe, that created enormous momentum.
Polish people can work hard. We’re not afraid of work, and we’re not afraid of extra hours. That momentum didn’t stop in the 2000s – it continued full throttle. I think that’s what really drove the growth. Economically, Poland is now in a very good place. We have innovation, things are moving forward, and that’s great.
In VFX specifically, one thing that surprised me is that Warsaw can sustain around twenty VFX companies working mainly in commercials. They’re not huge companies, but they survive and pay people reasonably well.
What’s interesting is that many of them survive purely on the Polish market. When I compare that with Shanghai, where we also have operations, it’s surprising. Shanghai is enormous, yet it relies heavily on freelancers and a handful of larger players. Warsaw can sustain more independent VFX companies than Shanghai in some respects.
That’s quite an achievement. It shows both the scale and the growth of the Polish market itself.
What project are you most proud of?
I always come back to the BBC Winter Olympics campaign for Sochi. Not necessarily because of the quality, but because it opened so many doors for us. Nobody wanted to take the project on. We established ourselves as a company willing to do impossible things.
We had thirteen weeks from seeing a one-page script to delivering the final film. In that time, we had to develop the concept with the agency, shoot everything, and complete post-production. We were sleeping in the office for thirteen weeks straight. I didn’t know whether it was Monday, Wednesday, or Sunday.
But we delivered on time. It was a huge success. Everybody loved it, and we won a BAFTA. I was incredibly proud of that.
The other project is one we finished last week. It’s for AES, a US-based power generation company. What makes it special is that we achieved a level of AI-driven animation consistency I honestly didn’t think would be possible for quite a while. It’s two minutes long and was completed in three weeks. Most of the content was AI-generated, but visually it’s very strong.
The Sochi project represented the traditional craft pipeline – an enormous amount of effort, sleepless nights, and manual work.
The AES project represents something new. We created a huge amount of content in a very short time, but under relatively comfortable conditions. We were still able to sleep and have weekends. Those two sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, and I’m very proud of both.
How integrated is Poland within the wider European VFX ecosystem?
If you’d asked me in 2022, before the strikes and before the wider industry crisis, I would have said we were on a very good path. There were significant consolidation efforts happening. One major example was PFX acquiring Human and Televisor in Poland.
There were discussions involving UK, German, and Polish companies. A lot of deals were very close to completion. Then 2023 happened, and everything collapsed. The idea was to bring together Eastern European talent under larger European structures, but those plans largely fell through.
At the moment, Poland is integrated primarily as a vendor – as a skilled workforce. There was a genuine opportunity to connect much more deeply with the wider European ecosystem, but the industry downturn interrupted that process. So for now, we remain somewhat disconnected.
What are the biggest pressures currently facing Polish VFX companies?
The biggest pressures are the same pressures affecting the global industry. Poland isn’t immune to any of it.
In some ways, we’re even more vulnerable because many Polish companies earn in foreign currencies while paying salaries and operating costs in Poland. The economics have become much harder. The strikes, the slowdown in streaming, and the wider contraction of the VFX market all had an impact.
The top end of the market shrank dramatically. At the same time, AI started eating away at the lower end of the market. So what’s left is a squeezed middle.
The biggest players absorb much of the remaining work, while smaller tasks increasingly become automated. For companies like ours, that means the cake we’re competing for is much smaller than it used to be. The crisis lasted years. We’re used to three-month crises or even nine-month crises. We’re not used to crises that drag on for years.
Revenues fell dramatically. In some cases, they were around fifty percent of what they had been in 2021 and 2022. The challenge now is figuring out what percentage of the industry will remain traditional craft and what percentage will become AI-driven, then restructuring businesses accordingly.
Everybody is trying to work out how many people they should keep in-house, what skills they’ll need, and how to remain profitable. That’s the reality.
How important are government support, tax incentives, and public funding in securing international work?
I know this won’t be a popular answer, but I think tax incentives are one of the most messed-up things in the industry. Originally, they probably came from a good place, but they’ve created unhealthy competition between countries.
Poland can’t compete with the incentives offered by places like Canada or Switzerland. The worst part is that most incentives don’t actually go to VFX companies. They go to producers and streamers to lower production costs. The VFX companies still end up working on very thin margins.
So it becomes less about talent and quality, and more about which country can transfer the most taxpayer money into a producer’s pocket. That’s why companies open offices in different countries – not because the talent is there, but because the incentives are there. I think the whole thing has become a Frankenstein monster.
That said, because everybody else is playing the game, we have to play it too. There’s now a coordinated effort within the Polish VFX industry to lobby for stronger incentives. Whether that will solve anything is another question. Personally, I think the system is fundamentally flawed.
What is the biggest misconception people have about the Polish VFX industry?
I’m not sure people have many misconceptions about the Polish VFX industry because I’m not sure people think about it very much. Poland has a strong reputation in games. We have CD Projekt Red, 11 bit studios, and many other successful companies. Gaming is thriving.
VFX is much smaller and faces the same problems affecting the global VFX industry. If there’s a misconception, it’s probably that the VFX sector is as large and influential as the games sector. It isn’t.
Do you have any interesting anecdotes, historical connections, or fun facts?
One of my favourite stories concerns Zbigniew Rybczyński. Rybczyński won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1983 for Tango.
The story goes that he stepped outside during the ceremony to have a cigarette, and security wouldn’t let him back in because he didn’t have identification on him. So he won an Oscar and couldn’t actually get back into the ceremony to receive it.
That’s a very Polish story somehow. Another figure worth mentioning is Tomasz Bagiński, who was nominated for The Cathedral. What impressed me about that film was the scale of what was achieved by a tiny team. When you compare it with major studio productions involving hundreds of people, it’s remarkable. That nomination meant a lot for Polish animation and visual storytelling.
Where does the Polish VFX business currently sit compared with major centres such as the UK, Canada, and France?
We’re nowhere near the same scale. The largest Polish companies are still much smaller than major facilities in the UK, Canada, or France.
We have exceptional artists and some standout companies, but overall we’re operating on a different level of scale.
I’d say we’re sitting at the back of the class. We do complex work and high-quality work, but generally on smaller projects and smaller budgets. The industry has also been shrinking.
We’ve seen layoffs, restructurings, and bankruptcies. Companies across Poland have reduced staff because of the challenges of the last few years. So at the moment, we’re definitely in contraction rather than expansion.
What does Poland do differently…and right?
I don’t think there’s a master plan. What Poland does well is operate in chaos. We’re comfortable with uncertainty. We don’t need all the answers before we start moving forward.
We’re willing to take risks. That flexibility is a huge advantage.
If you compare us with Germany, there’s often a stronger need for organisation and structure before anything happens. The French generally prefer comfortable, organised working environments.
Polish people can work in very makeshift conditions. Bad infrastructure, poor internet, limited resources – it doesn’t matter. We’ll find a way to make it work.
That ability to operate in uncertainty is one of our biggest strengths.
Has the war in Ukraine had an impact on the Polish VFX sector?
Yes, definitely. At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many companies across the industry made a conscious effort to help. The focus was on supporting Ukrainian artists and their families in relocating and continuing their work safely in Poland. It was very much a solidarity-driven response. A lot of highly skilled artists relocated, and relationships between Polish and Ukrainian companies became much stronger. In our own case, we worked daily with several companies operating from Ukraine.
The war also affected Belarus. I know of companies that moved from Belarus to Warsaw because they opposed the Russian invasion. That strengthened the talent pool inside Poland. From the perspective of the VFX sector specifically in Poland, those changes have strengthened the industry. There are now many Ukrainian professionals working in the Polish industry, and I think the ties between the two countries have become much closer.
What do the next five to ten years look like for the Polish VFX industry – and for Juice in particular?
For Juice, and for the industry generally, the next few years will be about finding the balance between AI and traditional craft. I believe VFX is changing forever, and changing for the better.
AI isn’t ten times faster than traditional pipelines. In some cases, it’s fifty or a hundred times faster. That doesn’t mean traditional tools disappear. Houdini, Blender, and Maya will remain important because AI still has limitations. But the balance will change dramatically. My guess is that AI will account for around seventy percent of workflows, while traditional craft pipelines account for around thirty percent.
The challenge is figuring out how those systems work together. The biggest companies may find that transition harder because large organisations are less flexible. Smaller and mid-sized companies have an advantage because they can adapt faster.
I think Polish companies are well positioned because Polish people are curious, hardworking, and generally unafraid of change. Long-form film and television work will increasingly incorporate AI. There are still quality issues, but the speed of development is extraordinary.
I have no doubt that AI will become the dominant way many things are done in VFX. The question is who adapts fastest. Hopefully, Juice will be one of the companies leading that change.
Thank you so much for chatting with us!
Adam Tunikowski – CEO & Co-founder
Adam is Co-founder and CEO of Juice, with over 20 years in creative industry. He began his adventure with design and branding at the age of 15 by preparing his first projects for Icenter Poland and ID (among their clients at the time were e.g. Sony and Amrest). At the age of 17, Adam moved to New York, where he worked for Ink & Co. Between 2002 and 2005, Adam worked as a head of the projects realized in London, Stockholm, Paris, and Vienna for Ink & Co (currently DMA Limited with such customers as e.g. Mercedes Benz, Wrangler, Lee, or North Face). For his work, Adam scored the 1st place in the rank of the most influential designer before 30 of “Print” magazine. This made him start the company he leads today – Juice, a Visual Effects & Sound Studio with +70 amazing people on board and portfolio with clients from Fortune 500 list.
Juice is a Poland-rooted, full-service visual effects, design, and audio powerhouse with over 20 years of experience delivering a wide range of commercial and non-commercial projects across multiple industries. Its core services – post-production, audio, and design – enable the studio to operate as a fully integrated partner, ensuring seamless workflows and strong outcomes for its clients. Juice is both design-driven and pragmatic, focused on delivering high-quality, high-profile work that resonates with audiences worldwide. Over the years, Juice has helped shape and elevate projects for global leaders including Netflix, HBO, Amazon Studios, Dolby, Sony Entertainment, CD Projekt RED, and the BBC. The team works across both major streaming platforms and with arthouse filmmakers recognised at leading international festivals such as Cannes and Venice. Notable projects include Monster by Hirokazu Kore-eda, which won Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival, and The Peasants, Poland’s official submission for the Academy Awards. Headquartered in Wrocław, Juice also operates from studios in Warsaw, Tokyo, and Shanghai, enabling a streamlined, efficient pipeline that is unaffected by time zone differences and supports continuous global collaboration. Its capabilities include photoreal VFX and simulation, Unreal Engine workflows, 3D and 2D animation, and creative direction for CGI, VFX, and animation projects, alongside colour grading, music composition, sound design, and voiceover.
