Animation thrives on television, so how do you steer a career in animation the way of the broadcast and what can you expect? A panel of experts will share their work and experiences in the world of TV animation and answer your questions in an open Q&A.
Chaired by Saint John Walker, Creative Skillset.
At Barbican Book tickets
Confirmed panel members
Jamie Badminton (Karrot Entertainment)
Jamie Badminton is a co-founder and Creative Director of Karrot Entertainment, the makers of ‘Sarah & Duck’ for CBeebies and BBC Worldwide. Jamie is the Producer of the series, and also oversees both the creative direction of Karrot’s commercials division and their series development slate. Karrot has had an active London animation studio since 2008 and employs over 40 people in Elephant & Castle.
Steve Smith (Beakus)
Steve Smith runs Beakus, a successful animation studio in London. He is a producer and director, and graduate of the MA Animation course at the Royal College of Art. Over 14 years of animation creation and production Steve’s work has won a BAFTA (CBBC Newsround ‘On Poverty’), a British Animation Award (Bibigon ‘Fun Facts’) and Annecy Crystals. His films include Eating For Two (Channel 4, 2002) and Leap of Faith (MTV, 2005), whilst his commercial clients include the BBC, Nickelodeon, Google, Kindle, Rankin, RED, McCann Erickson, M&C Saatchi, and The Science Museum.
Steve has produced or directed work for TV, including the CBeebies show Numtums (25 x 5-mins), for gallery projection (The National Maritime Museum’s Royal River), for the web (Natwest CBP for M&C Saatchi, Penny Dreadful for Sky, and the music video Marshal Dear for Savages), and for the cinema (a 10-minute section of the Monty Python feature A Liar’s Autobiography). He is also collaborating with author/illustrator Leigh Hodgkinson to create an animated pre-school show, Toggle (52 x 5-mins), which has been pre-bought by CBeebies.
Steve can often be found lecturing at several universities, judging for BAFTA and the British Animation Awards, and travelling between London and Lewes where he lives.
Maria Manton (Munky)
Bafta nominated Maria Manton has over 24 years’ experience producing animation and live action. Producing projects with 52 directors, (to date!) in every style of filmmaking and animation, for every type of media. In 2000 she co-founded the production company Slinky Pictures with Chris Shepherd, which she ran for a prolific ten years.
As well as hundreds of commercials, and music promos, also to date Maria has also produced thirteen award-winning short films. And her TV producing credits include producing 86 minutes of animated sketch’s across the first three series of the iconic BBC3, animated comedy sketch show ‘Monkey Dust’. She produced one of the films for ‘The Wrong Trainers’, an animated documentary for Children’s BBC that won a ‘Best Children’s Factual BAFTA as well as numerous awards at festivals worldwide.
For Channel 4 she produced ‘Talented Mouse’ sketches for cult series Fonejacker, (BAFTA comedy award), and animation and graphics for Chris Morris’s ‘Nathan Barley’. She was also Creative Director & Producer on three home-grown TV series pilots for Slinky. And she currently has three TV projects in early days of development.
In addition to producing, Maria has also directed a number of commercial and film projects. She was the stop frame director and designer for the animated ‘Bull’ sequences in the Paul King and Warp X/Film4 Feature ‘Bunny and The Bull’. And, as Animation Director, Maria collaborated on the Chapman Brothers’ first live action animation short ‘The Organ Grinder’s Monkey’, (2011), for Warp Films/Film4. Her current Directing projects include a commercial and stop frame Nightmare sequences for a feature due for release Christmas 2014.
She works independently, and also since January 2012 Maria has been Head of Production & Animation Director at Munky, a renowned Visual FX and Post Production company based in Soho London.
Andreas Hykade (Studio Film Bilder)
Andreas Hykade (born 1968 in Bavaria, Germany) is one of the most talented and original voices in animation today. He studied animation at the prestigious Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg until 1995 and has since created a series of commercials, TV projects and animated films mostly for adults. Among his films are We Lived in Grass (1996, German Short Film Award), Ring of Fire (2000), The Runt (2007, German Short Film Award, FIPRESCI Award Annecy) and Love & Theft (2010, German Short Film Award, Sacem Award for original music, Annecy 2011).
He has also created a series of animated films for children, Tom & the slice of bread with strawberry jam & honey (2001 – 2012). Since 2000, he has been teaching animation at various institutions, such as Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Royal College of Art London, Kunsthochschule Kassel and Harvard University. He is the only director to have won the German short film prize three times, and his works have been honoured by retrospectives around the world, at festivals such as Ottawa Festival, Holland Animation Festival and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Andreas’ website
