• Irish animators produce Oasis video (SBP – 29th October 2006)

    My article from today’s Sunday Business Post:

    Dublin animation firm Brown Bag Films has made a five-minute animated video for rock group Oasis.

    A team of animators spent six weeks hand-painting each frame of the video for The Masterplan, which is being released as a single from a new best of Oasis album. In total, the team of 15 artists produced around 6,500 individual drawings.

    The video is based on the paintings of Manchester-born painter LS Lowry and features an animated version of the band moving around within his most famous work. ‘‘The band love it apparently,” said Jackie Leonard, commercials producer with Brown Bag.

    ‘‘All the feedback while we were making it was very positive and they seemed to really like it.” She described the project as ‘‘a gruelling technical challenge’’ because it was all hand-drawn. ‘‘Something like this would normally take between three and six months.
    ‘‘We had to be very inventive with our techniques and make sure the team was willing to work late. It was difficult enough – we’d put different textures on different characters and then use different textures for different shots, such as night or daytime shots,” said Leonard.

    Leonard said that the video had been available to download on MSN and YouTube since last week and has already had thousands of hits. Brown Bag currently has two divisions, with one focusing on TV productions and the other dedicated to commercials as well as music videos.

    The company, which previously received an Oscar nomination for its short animation, Give Up Yer Auld Sins, hopes the Oasis deal will help it win more business in the music industry.