Founder/executive producer Peter Barg has launched bicoastal Z Animation, an animation production studio specializing in commercial fare. The company opens with a rather extensive directors roster, featuring capabilities in areas including "2-D and 3-D animation, stop motion animation, multimedia, Flash, graphic design, title design and illustration," according to Barg.
Directors available for work through Z Animation are Nishan Akgulian, Larry Bafia, Norm Bendell, Gill Bradley, John Cuneo, Seth Feinberg, Neil Goodridge, Liz Holzman, Nathan Jensen, Rosana Liera, Lee Lorenz, Jimmy Picker, Jordan Reichek, Jeff Scher, Bruce Schluter, Edward Sorel, James Yang and the directing teams Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli, and Oscar Grillo and Ted Rockley.
Barg brings extensive advertising agency experience to the helm of his new company. Prior to founding Z Animation, Barg worked for 10 years at McCann-Erickson, New York, followed by another 10 years at the since closed D’Arcy, St. Louis. At McCann, Barg produced spot campaigns for clients including Coca-Cola, AT&T, L’Oreal, Nestle and R.J. Reynolds. At D’Arcy, he produced ads for Blockbuster, SBC, Mars and Anheuser-Busch.
Most recently, Barg was head of production at Acme Filmworks, Hollywood. There, he produced commercials that included: AT&T’s "Long Distance" campaign for Young & Rubicam, New York; Microsoft’s "Potential" campaign for McCann-Erickson, San Francisco; and Earthlink’s "Darwin" for TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles.
MULTIPLE OPTIONS
The new company features a plethora of animation styles to choose from. On the Z Animation roster, directors specializing in character animation are Grillo and Rockley, Bendell, Holzman and Reichek. Design specialists are Kugel and Cafarelli, Bradley, Jensen, Liera, Reichek and Scher. Jimmy Picker will handle stop-motion projects, while Bafia and Reichek will serve as point men for 3-D jobs. Goodridge and Scher will work on multimedia commissions; Bradley and Feinberg will be the house Flash artists. Reichek, Scher and Schluter are slated as title designers, and those directors with an illustration specialty are Akgulian, Bendell, Cuneo, Lorenz, Sorel and Yang.
Barg said that the artisans he’s representing and producing for "run the gamut from established directors to young, new talent." He cited Liera as an example of the latter, while "experienced hands" include Kugel and Cafarelli.
Kugel, Cafarelli, Grillo, Rockley, Bafia, Bendell and Schluter are fairly well known to the spotworld. Kugel and Cafarelli run their own New York-based animation shop Buzzco Associates, which they continue to maintain for non-commercial projects, including longform. Founded in 1985, Buzzco has facilitated Kugel’s and Cafarelli’s collaboration on several award winning animated short films, including KnitWits, Fast Food Matador and We Love It. The duo also completed spotwork at Buzzco, for clients including Southwestern Bell and Nickelodeon.
Grillo and Rockley had run Klacto Animation, London, since ’81. Although they closed the shop recently, the duo animated a considerable amount of both spots and television programs in the U.K. and Europe. The pair is currently freelancing in England, but will be available for U.S. jobs through Z.
Bafia was most recently a director at the commercial division of PDI/Dreamworks, Palo Alto, Calif. (that division later closed). A CGI specialist, Bafia directed spots at Dreamworks for clients including Coca-Cola, Kool-Aid and Sega.
Bendell is a freelance illustrator who continues to maintain his own shop, Bendell Studios, Far Hills, N.J. He has provided spot illustrations for clients including AT&T, British Airways and Microsoft.
Schluter has completed design work on commercials for clients including The Comedy Channel, BF Goodrich and Gillette. He’s done design work for features such as The Matrix and Goodfellas. He was formerly a creative director with visual effects shop R/Greenberg Associates, New York. After that company shut down its spot division, Schluter formed design and visual effects shop Greenberg/ Schluter, which has since closed.
Much of the rest of Z’s roster contains artists not so well known to the U.S. spotworld, but highly accomplished in other arenas nonetheless.
Bradley is based in London and holds a Masters degree in Illustration from the Royal College of Arts there. Although she has worked extensively in the U.K. spot market, Bradley is making her debut in the U.S. through Z.
Cuneo, meanwhile, is an American illustrator with work published in Esquire and the New Yorker.
Feinberg specializes in interactive animation and is particularly known for his Flash work. Working from his eponymous, New York studio, he directs, designs and animates the Showtime Network’s popular Queer Duck series.
Goodridge is a freelance animator working out of Melbourne, Australia. He has worked extensively in the Australian spot and television markets.
Holzman is best known as the writer, producer and director of such Warner Bros. animation shows as Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs.
Lorenz and Sorel are both illustrators with countless New Yorker cartoons to their credit.
Picker is best known as the director of animated films including Jimmy the C, Sundae in New York, My Friend Liberty and The Age of Ignorance. His specialty is clay animation.
Reichek has produced and directed animated shows for the Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. and Disney. He currently runs his longform projects out of his Los Angeles-based Perky Pickles Studios.
Scher is a film montage artist whose work is featured in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Pompidou Centre and Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris, and the Vienna Kunsthalle among other famous venues.
Yang is an experienced illustrator based in New York and represented for non-spot work by the David Goldman Agency, New York. His print work has appeared in numerous consumer publications.
In addition to the well-established artists mentioned above, Z’s roster features several younger helmers as well: Akgulian, Jensen and Liera. All three gain their first U.S. spot representation through Z.
Sales representation for Z Animation is handled on the East Coast by David Goldman of the David Goldman Agency, New York, and in the Midwest and on the West Coast by Gilles de Bonfilhs of Visual EFX, Sherman Oaks, Calif.
