Blue Zoo Animation Launches Advertising and Shortform Director Roster
July 3, 2025
The Tortoise and the Hare face off yet again in “The Race,” a vibrant and graphically complex new version of the childrens’ classic from Montréal-born director/animator/teacher Jacques Khouri with a wonderfully off-kilter score by Azniv Korkejian. [Watch]
Back in May, Portland animation studio LAIKA announced it was spinning off its advertising division LAIKA/House to focus on feature films.
The new independent entity, branded House Special and lead by president Lourri Hammack, CD Kirk Kelley and MD of strategic operations Al Cubillas, are off to a promising start completing the end credits of LAIKA’s Boxtrolls and this acerbic in-house CG short called “A Tale of Momentum & Inertia.” [Watch]
Brighton creative studio FutureDeluxe celebrate their fifth birthday by expanding into London and releasing this blinding swirl of eye-candy called “Mothership,” the first of five films in collaboration with Twistedpoly (aka Slovenian designer/director/motion artist Nejc Polovsak) and Zelig Sound. [Watch]
Techno Image in São Paulo prove the pen is indeed mightier than the sword by unleashing their 3D character talents on this rip-roaring promo for the 2014 Trojan Horse Was a Unicorn digital conference in Portugal. [Watch]
This rocking new two-minute animated online spot from Not To Scale director Chris Dooley thru agency 1 Trick Pony just makes me want to stay at Virgin Hotels. [Watch]
CDs William Campbell, Will Johnson and the crew at LA prodco Gentleman Scholar celebrate their favorite day of the year by revealing “The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Skeleton” in 13 cute (and mostly-family-friendly) 3D vignettes. [Watch]
Absolutely insane/hilarious mini-musical about “A young policeman falling in love with a black panther” from French director/animator Tristan Cottin. Intense motion, killer character work and an all-round brilliant way to end the week. BTW, if this is NSFW at your present job, you might want to look for a new gig. [Watch]
Brent Sievers, a designer/illustrator/animator who swears he was raised by oysters somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and swept through the festival circuit with “The Divide,” his heavily caffeinated black comedy about what happens when “Man and [Watch]
It took Riff Raff director Francois Rousselet and the Red Bee Media team a full year to shoot the 26 music stars who join Brian Wilson for a grand version of The Beach Boys’ classic “God Only Knows” in this spot to launch BBC Music. The supporting VFX work from The Mill includes the crystal particle system around [Watch]
Trio of playful VFX spots from Barcelona CG masters Trizz and MJZ director Carl Erik Rinsch for Moen’s Reflex faucets produced thru HomeVFX in LA for The Martin Agency. [Watch]
Mirada and Wongdoody connect the Kindle Voyage reading experience to real smooshed/bleached wood fibers and ink with clever, intricate and seamless CG. Nice to see the origami-CG technique used for an idea actually related to paper. [Watch]
Balls. Family jewels. Love grenades. Call them what you will, but the problem remains: How do you motivate more men to check for testicular cancer which is 100% curable when caught early? London’s Studio AKA and UK non-profit Check One Two believe the place to start is a two-minute online film for the [Watch]
IN 2013 The Mill created “98% Human” for PETA featuring a startlingly emotional performance by an all-CG chimp.
Although far more upbeat and ambitious in scope, this new spot helmed by Academy director Frederic Planchon for Scottish power company SSE, retains the intimate character subtleties, masterful rendering and perfect live action integration required to ensure 98% of humans who watch it will believe the orangutang is real. [Watch]
Check the VFX breakdown to find out just what’s CG and what’s live in this spot from Smuggler’s Adam Berg and the crew at MPC for the release of Xbox Forza 2.”
“The MPC LA VFX team supervised the 3-day shoot in Italy with Adam and created the ‘invisible VFX’ such as recreating 3D scenes of the tilt-shift effect, compositing depth passes, crafting over 40 matte paintings and adding CG racetracks, cars, and explosions.” [Watch]
