Bait Studio To Expand

Bait Studio has announced its expansion to incorporate two new companies which will offer animation as well as interactive and publishing.
Under the leadership of its Managing Director, Jon Rennie, Bait Studio remains the overall parent company and continues to produce high quality motion graphics and visual effects, while Cloth Cat Animation becomes its animation arm and Thud Media its interactive and publishing arm.
Bait Studio, part of the Gorilla Group, is responsible for work on shows such as Stella (Sky), GT Academy (ITV), Time Team (Channel 4), feature films including The Machine, brands like Nike, Betty Crocker and MTV, and most recently television projects Ludus (CBBC) Poet in New York (BBC), Grandpa in My Pocket (CBeebies) and Llan-ar-Goll-en for S4C.
According to Jon Rennie, the company saw the increasing demand for interactive as an opportunity to develop this aspect of its range of services on projects alongside its animation and VFX and Motion Graphics work.
"We see this as an exciting time for the company, as we believe we're responding to the rapid developing needs of producers and broadcasters. Animation is a natural progression from our work in VFX and motion graphics and we already have many talented character animators in house who work on our commercial projects," he said.
"We take great pride in offering high quality 2D and CG animation and have a highly developed infrastructure for delivering to broadcast. As most animation projects now require an interactive element it has been a natural fit to also expand into interactive, using our range of skills - Thud Media has been created to respond to this need."
As part of the expansion, the company has taken on 14 new members of staff for their new animation projects. These include Ben Cawthorne, as Director of Animation and Interactive, Adam Bailey as Head of Animation Development and Shane Skuse as Head of Interactive Development.
Many of the new staff are former employees of Dinamo Productions - the Cardiff-based studio which went into administration in June, leaving two key animation projects abandoned. Both projects have been adopted by Cloth Cat Animation who will now complete and ensure delivery of both Boj (Pesky Productions for CBeebies, S4C, RTE) and Wildernuts, a Kavaleer production for RTE.
Bait Studio's Creative Producer, Peter Rogers said: "We are very happy that we can help complete both of these high quality projects, which were in danger of not being finished. We've also been fortunate enough to enable many of the key staff to continue working on them so that the broadcasters - BBC, CBeebies and S4C - can have delivery of the series as intended."
In taking on staff from the former studio, Cloth Cat has also gained valuable expertise in CelAction which is widely used on highly regarded productions such as Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly's Magic Kingdom.
As a result, Cloth Cat can now offer technical as well creative services on projects, including rigging and layout services. Cloth Cat continues to push this expertise and has already begun working closely with CelAction to develop further training via the Creative Skillset Challenge Fund.
Bait Studio is part of the Gorilla Group and Boom Pictures Limited.
www.baitstudio.com