Fonco Studios
- Open roles
- 0
- Founded
- 1997
- Employees
- 1-10
- Offices
- 1
About Fonco Studios
Fonco Studios is an independent design, fabrication, practical effects, and production facility based in Los Angeles. Founded in San Francisco in 1997, the business began as a boutique workshop specializing in miniatures, creature effects, and practical illusions. Its current Los Angeles operation brings physical fabrication, production stages, and post-production resources together in one facility.
The studio works across feature films, episodic television, commercials, music videos, and streaming content. Its capabilities also serve theme parks, live entertainment, brand activations, museums, product development, and robotics. This range connects its model-making and fabrication background with projects that require physical environments, working mechanisms, or objects built for the camera.
Design and fabrication
Fonco’s work spans concept art, story development, product design, traditional sculpture, laser scanning, and 3D printing. Fabrication services include scale miniatures, props, costumes, creature suits, vehicle mock-ups, robots, animatronics, and specialty restorations. Set design and construction support both custom builds and productions using existing environments.
The studio combines hands-on model making and sculptural techniques with digital fabrication tools. Its broader practical production capabilities include stop-motion animation, high-speed photography, cinematography, and practical special effects, allowing projects to draw on several disciplines within the same production setting.
Production facilities
The Los Angeles complex includes a 52-by-40-foot main stage and a 45-by-26-foot insert stage with a 20-by-16-foot green screen cyclorama. Standing environments include a science-fiction spaceship, bar or tavern, alleyway with camera-safe graffiti, elevator, laboratory, doctor’s office, and library. Productions can also commission custom sets and access grip and lighting packages.
Audio and post-production services extend the facility’s capabilities beyond filming. These include editing, color grading, sound design and mixing, voiceover, and ADR recording. Together, the workshops, stages, standing sets, and recording resources support projects from initial design and physical construction through shooting and finishing.
More about Fonco Studios
Leadership and operating model
- Practical effects artist Fon Davis founded and directs the studio. His earlier experience includes more than a decade in Industrial Light & Magic’s Model Shop.
- A small core facility team scales with project-based freelance fabricators, prop makers, and stage crew.
Motion-capture collaboration
The studio serves as an experiential showroom for Noitom’s inertial and optical motion-capture hardware, adding a hands-on demonstration role to its production activities.
Education and mentorship
The report describes community mentorship and STEM/STEAM education partnerships involving the Stan Winston School of Character Arts, the Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation, Make: Magazine, and Southern California school districts to train emerging artists and makers.
Notable credits
12 creditsOffices
Current and former locations of Fonco Studios
- 1308 N San Fernando Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90065Los Angeles, California, United States
Los Angeles office
HeadquartersAbout this office
A 16,000-square-foot production and fabrication facility in Cypress Park with stages, standing sets, workshops, an audio/ADR booth, and a motion-capture/VR showroom.
- San Francisco, California, United States
San Francisco office
Former officeOpened 1997
About this office
Historical founding location described as San Francisco / Marin County. Northern California operations ended before the current Los Angeles operation; exact premises and closure year are not established.
Open roles
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