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How a Remote VFX Studio Rebuilt Team Culture with a Virtual Office — Frontier VFX
When Frontier VFX grew from 10 people to 75 as a fully remote, Montreal-based visual effects studio, the "community feel" that made early days special started to slip. In this episode, Oliver "Oli" Nacey, Production Operations & Culture Coordinator at Frontier VFX, joins host Karan (Founder of Cosmos) to share exactly how they rebuilt it.
Oli breaks down the real problem behind remote culture — that it's about people, not industries — and why a virtual office turned out to fit a VFX studio surprisingly well. He gets candid about the messy parts: the "big brother" fears when the team first saw avatars and always-on presence, the friction of getting artists to treat a passive tool differently from a video app, and how a small focus-group rollout eventually became company-wide habit.
You'll hear how Frontier evaluated the space (they tried Gather, found Cosmos on Product Hunt), why the "middle ground" between too-simple and too-gamified won, how they measured something as soft as culture with surveys and lived experience, and how Cosmos quietly improved their onboarding process too. Plus the practical stuff: running 60+ person town halls, screen-share quality, and annotations.
A must-listen for anyone leading a remote team, heads of people, or studios rethinking how virtual work actually feels.
(00:00) Meet Oli & Frontier VFX (a fully remote Montreal studio)
(01:42) Scaling fast: from 10 to 75 people (and heading to 150)
(03:32) Why remote culture became top of mind
(04:50) The problem: losing the "community feel" as they grew
(05:25) Discovering virtual offices & choosing Cosmos
(06:47) How a virtual office actually ties into culture
(11:07) How Frontier uses Cosmos day-to-day (statuses & flexibility)
(13:43) Onboarding a "passive" tool (and why that's hard)
(17:46) Addressing the "big brother" fear head-on
(19:18) Two personas: production (meetings) vs artists (focus)
(22:07) What the virtual office gives artists
(24:54) Getting leadership buy-in
(27:52) A surprise win: better new-hire onboarding
(28:29) Measuring something as soft as culture
(31:35) Evaluating tools & building confidence in a new product
(36:37) Call stability at scale: 60+ person town halls, screen share
(38:40) Wrap-up
Try Cosmos for your team → https://cosmos.video
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By Karan BawejaWhen Frontier VFX grew from 10 people to 75 as a fully remote, Montreal-based visual effects studio, the "community feel" that made early days special started to slip. In this episode, Oliver "Oli" Nacey, Production Operations & Culture Coordinator at Frontier VFX, joins host Karan (Founder of Cosmos) to share exactly how they rebuilt it.
Oli breaks down the real problem behind remote culture — that it's about people, not industries — and why a virtual office turned out to fit a VFX studio surprisingly well. He gets candid about the messy parts: the "big brother" fears when the team first saw avatars and always-on presence, the friction of getting artists to treat a passive tool differently from a video app, and how a small focus-group rollout eventually became company-wide habit.
You'll hear how Frontier evaluated the space (they tried Gather, found Cosmos on Product Hunt), why the "middle ground" between too-simple and too-gamified won, how they measured something as soft as culture with surveys and lived experience, and how Cosmos quietly improved their onboarding process too. Plus the practical stuff: running 60+ person town halls, screen-share quality, and annotations.
A must-listen for anyone leading a remote team, heads of people, or studios rethinking how virtual work actually feels.
(00:00) Meet Oli & Frontier VFX (a fully remote Montreal studio)
(01:42) Scaling fast: from 10 to 75 people (and heading to 150)
(03:32) Why remote culture became top of mind
(04:50) The problem: losing the "community feel" as they grew
(05:25) Discovering virtual offices & choosing Cosmos
(06:47) How a virtual office actually ties into culture
(11:07) How Frontier uses Cosmos day-to-day (statuses & flexibility)
(13:43) Onboarding a "passive" tool (and why that's hard)
(17:46) Addressing the "big brother" fear head-on
(19:18) Two personas: production (meetings) vs artists (focus)
(22:07) What the virtual office gives artists
(24:54) Getting leadership buy-in
(27:52) A surprise win: better new-hire onboarding
(28:29) Measuring something as soft as culture
(31:35) Evaluating tools & building confidence in a new product
(36:37) Call stability at scale: 60+ person town halls, screen share
(38:40) Wrap-up
Try Cosmos for your team → https://cosmos.video