During my research I have found that there are two London based companies that I have become quite interested in, in terms of their roles and the work they do as well as the type of animation styles:
The LINE Animation
The First Animation production company is The Line Animation Studio which is known to be well known for its BAFTA nominated Directors, producers and animators. They started out in 2013 as just six animators renting a small studio in east London, freelancing and making short films as they wanted to create animation which wasn’t seen in the industry. The Company since then has become globally recognised and has projects in many brand advertisements such as Chipotle- A future Begins and have also worked on music videos like Gorillaz- humility. They have also collaborated with Riot Games with the project Giants- League of Legends. This animation studio preserves 2D animation with a distinct Cyberpunk style as well as having different original projects.
One of my favourite pieces of animation from the studio is Heavenly Vessel which is an original story directed by Venla Linna and is about the fear of transformation and change featuring beautiful visuals. There were 31 animation departments involved in making the 2-minute film and the behind-the-scenes breakdown shows the different stages of animation as they used TV paint for their hand drawn characters.
The Line Animation studio has a very strong online presence updating their social media accounts very regularly giving people an insight to some of their current projects through various platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram TikTok and Gum road where they also feature some of their artwork.
Cartoon Saloon
The other animation production company that I really like is Cartoon Saloon, which is an Irish based studio, located in Kilkenny and established in 1999 by Paul Young, Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey. This studio is known worldwide for its two Golden Globe and Five Academy Award nominations. As well as BAFTA and Emmy awards. The studio specialises in producing short feature films and TV series with my favourite being Wolf Walkers which was released in 2020 directed by Tomm Moote and Ross Stewart.
As well as other films such as Song of the Sea released in 2014. The specific technique of combining 2D animation digital and Hand drawn animation they use is beautiful as it resembles illustrations you find in children’s books. In some of the behind-the-scenes videos they feature and show how the animators/artists go to real life locations to draw from life and create backgrounds settings using different techniques, Ink pen, Sketches and watercolours to bring the film to life.
Studio Website links:
The LINE Animation- https://thelinestudio.com/work
Cartoon Saloon- https://www.cartoonsaloon.ie/feature-films/
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