Animation and visual effects company BENT Image Lab has opened an office in NYC, shortly after the Portland-headquartered studio expanded internationally with a shop in Spain.
BENT’s executive producer and VP of production Tsui Ling Toomer will head the New York office with a focus on commercial work and long form programming development. Toomer, who was recently promoted to oversee new business at BENT, will split her time between New York and BENT’s studio in Portland. BENT will collaborate and share its Manhattan office space with the music and audio post artisans at Big Yellow Duck.
“With our increasing workload we felt this was the right time to expand, said BENT CEO and executive producer. New York is one of the most important cities in our industry and building a presence there will allow us to cement partnerships with the leaders on the forefront of advertising, technology and entertainment.”
BENT’s slate of projects currently a long form computer animated pilot for Hallmark Channel, an augmented reality R&D project for long time client Taxi 2, promotional webisodes for networks MTV and CMT and an original animated web series from director Rob Shaw. In addition BENT has expanded its artistic prowess by developing an in-house design group headed up by designer/director Josh Cox.
In connection with its digital services, the studio has been developing photo-real food animation and adding to its technical repertoire with a new photogrammetry stage. This facilitates precision accurate 3D models/textures of people and objects, most recently used to create CGI fruits and vegetables for the Raley’s Family of Fine Stores campaign, and CGI people and elements for a Coca-Cola Olympics spot.
In January of this year, BENT announced its opening of an office in Spain headed by creative director Javier Leon. In September 2013, BENT partners Ray Di Carlo, directors David Daniels and Chel White launched BENT’s emerging digital media and entertainment group with CafeFX co-founder Jeff Barnes. This group focuses on cutting edge Augmented Reality, digital advertising and entertainment and special venue experiences for glasses, smart phones, tablets and other location based devices.
BENT’s clients include such brands as Starbucks, Nissan, Verizon, Nike, Adidas, Koodo Mobile, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Tetra Pak, Chip’s Ahoy as well as agencies BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Euro RSCG Worldwide and Publicis. BENT also produced long form animation specials for Hallmark Channel and IFC’s Portlandia, visual effects for NBC’s Grimm and film directors Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant.
