A hub of animation in the UK, we invite a selection of studios and practitioners to showcase their studios and what makes Manchester one of the nation’s premier animation hotspots.
Featuring:
David Barton from Cubic Motion
Cubic Motion was founded in Manchester back in 2009 and has grown to become the leading provider of performance-driven facial animation to the global video games market. The company has a reputation for ultra-high quality, and an extensive list of AAA clients.
In March 2020, Cubic Motion was acquired by Epic Games to help them push forward with digital human initiatives. David and the team at Cubic Motion continue to offer animation services and technology to developers across the whole games industry.
David has been with Cubic Motion in Manchester for 10 years working in a variety of roles across Technology and Pipeline Design, Production, and Business Development. In that time the company that specialises in facial animation and computer vision has grown from a start-up to over 100 talented people across animation, development, and research. Cubic Motion has collaborated with many of the top AAA game studios, such as Insomniac Games (Spiderman), Sony Santa Monica (God of War), and Activision Treyarch (Call of Duty)
Prior to Cubic Motion David helped another Manchester tech company (Image Metrics) expand into games and film animation working on projects such as Grand Theft Auto and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Karl Doran from Flow Creative
Flow is a tight-knit team of highly-skilled designers, animators, thinkers and dreamers.
They are united by their passion for beautiful design, and an honest and authentic approach. Combining a vast collective experience with fresh perspective, they create memorable work that helps their clients communicate better.
From global brand campaigns to animated explainer videos to social-first video content, their work, like them, is varied and multifaceted. If it wasn’t they wouldn’t have so much fun making it!
Karl is the founder and creative director of Flow Creative, a multi-award winning agency that specialises in motion design and creative content. Flow’s work has a bold, distinctive style and a design-led approach to visual storytelling, creating beautifully crafted campaigns for forward-thinking brands.
Karl worked in marketing for eight years, running his own businesses for seven of those, before re-training in animation. He then worked as a motion designer in-house at a creative agency and freelance for five years before starting Flow in 2016. In the last four years Flow has become a leading motion studio with a reputation for creating characterful campaigns, winning seventeen industry awards for their work.
Leo Casserly from Flix Facilities
From scripting, storyboarding, 2D and 3D animation to full video and audio post-production; Flix has a talented and experienced team who can bring their expertise to any animation project. Flix Animation Studio is based at MediaCityUk and also now offers animation and post-production in its Isle of Man facility.
Flix have worked with many UK broadcasters, producers, and distributors over the last 27 years, and have collaborated on numerous series including Postman Pat SDS, The Furchester Hotel, Toby’s Travelling Circus, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion and Treasure Champs. They are thrilled to have designed and produced the animation for the BAFTA award winning BBC children’s series Old Jack’s Boat and Poppies – a Remembrance Day film for CBeebies and CBBC.
They have most recently produced their first long form animated series ‘Dog Loves Books’ for CBeebies and are currently working on a new exciting animated show for Milkshake.
Leo set up Flix over 28 years ago and has been at the helm ever since. With over 30 years experience working in Post Production and some impressive credits he went onto develop the excellent reputation for Animation that Flix enjoys and then moving the company into central Manchester expanding the portfolio to include Dramas and Documentaries.
