Bending Spoons has reportedly laid off the entire team of FiLMiC, including its founder and CEO, according to sources close to PetaPixel. FiLMiC, known for its advanced video capture application for the iPhone and more, has been a prominent name in the industry for years.
The layoffs, which were rumoured last month, have now been confirmed. They encompassed the entire team behind FiLMiC Pro and presumably FiLMiC Firstlight, the company’s photo-focused app. This move has effectively brought operations, maintenance, and development in-house at Bending Spoons.
Neill Barham, the founder and CEO of FiLMiC, indicated the end of his tenure at the company in November on LinkedIn, signalling the comprehensive nature of the layoffs that affected all levels of the company.
Italy-based Bending Spoons, founded in 2013, is known for its Splice and Remini apps, focusing on mobile video editing and photo enhancement with generative AI integration. The acquisition of FiLMiC in September 2022 was initially seen as a strategic move to bolster the development of FiLMiC’s capture apps, aligning with Bending Spoons’ expertise in post-production technologies.
The most recent significant update to FiLMiC Pro was in October, which introduced Apple Log support, but notably lacked updates for external SSD support, a departure from FiLMiC’s history of timely updates aligned with iPhone advancements.
In the wake of FiLMiC’s absence, Blackmagic Design’s iOS app has gained popularity for video capture on new iPhones, even being used by Apple’s in-house team for its Mac event production on October 31.
As of now, Bending Spoons has not provided any comments regarding the layoffs or its plans for the FiLMiC applications. The absence of any mention of FiLMiC on Bending Spoons’ website further adds to the uncertainty surrounding the future of these apps.
The app has been popular over the years as it brought more controls to videos for cinematographers. In 2021 the developers added ProRes support to the iPhone 13 Pro lineup before Apple did.
