Ice Age (2002) was the film that made Blue Sky Studios a major competitor in the animated feature film industry, and they released around one new animated film every two years over the next decade-and-a-half. Their existence also helped boost the morale in the pretty dismal animation circle of the northeast United States, as they were the only feature animation studio in the region, having been originally located in White Plains, New York before moving under a mile across the state border to Greenwich, Connecticut in 2009 for the tax breaks. They were notable for being one of the first studios to use raytrace rendering in feature films. They were also known for using more naturalistic lighting design than other studios, depending completely on sculpture maquettes to create the 3D forms of their characters, and utilizing cartoon squash-and-stretch more frequently in their later features. Chris Wedge directed the studio's first two films and their 2013 film Epic, and continued to executive produce many of their later ones. While the company saw an impressive success streak in the 2000s and early 2010s, their films would hit something of an Audience-Alienating Era following Ice Age: Continental Drift that saw both their critical impressions start to falter and their box office take a rather drastic downturn; first, Epic saw a so-so result both critically and financially, leaving the film a Stillborn Franchise. This was followed by Rio 2 failing to reach the success either Ver mais