Eallin Motion Arts' Global Playground
The Prague-based animation and VFX studio draws projects and directors from around the world. And that's just the way Executive Producer Lukas Skalnik likes it.
Eallin Motion Arts' Global Playground
The Prague-based animation and VFX studio draws projects and
directors from around the world. And that's just the way
Executive Producer Lukas Skalnik likes it.
By Anthony Vagnoni
According to Lukas Skalnik, the word 'eallin' is a Norse term that means 'live.' Given that it's the name of his Prague-based animation and visual effects studio, Eallin Motion Art, there's an obvious explanation: "We chose it because our artists create an outlook on life," he says, capturing the sense of what the best animators and designers often do on film. "We think it's a very positive expression." He couldn't be more right.
Eallin creates content for ad agencies, media companies and TV networks, producing everything from TVCs and broadcast IDs to short films and animated TV programs, almost all of which has an animation element to it. Its work is a fun mix of styles and techniques, with everything from classic 2D cel animation to stop-motion to more contemporary 3D and mixed media. Like all animation and effects houses, the studio has full post production capabilities in-house, and has also handled production service work and live action. Its client list runs the gamut as well, from global brands like Wrigley's and MTV to regional and European brands like Rajec, the bottled water.
The company was started in 2000 by Skalnik, who holds the title Executive Producer, and his partner, fellow EP Martin Hovorka. Both came out of production backgrounds; Skalnik had been with Etic, and Hovorka with Stillking. Today Eallin has a network of associations, branches and representatives scattered around the world, including Europe, Japan, India and the US. "This allows us to field an international team of creators, enriching our projects with an aesthetic, style and personality of different cultures, modes of thought and schools of design," says Skalnik. And that's important, he adds, since Eallin's agency assignments have come from shops in France, Germany, Denmark, the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Turkey.
Skalnik says the founding of Eallin was designed to focus on attracting the right creative team for each job. Coming out of the live action side of the business, he and Hovorka were well aware of how important the choice of a director can be for the success of a job. But even though there is a long tradition of outstanding animation to be found in Eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, most of the animation work being done for commercials was often being handled by post production houses, he says. "They had only limited access to animation talent," he notes, "with many of them offering roughly the same look."
Eallin took a different approach. "We started approaching young directors and designers who agreed to let us represent them for commercials," he says, "and began working with them in the same manner as film production companies, which gave us a competitive edge over the other post production companies."
The Eallin model was built on the talent and vision of the directors, supported by the capabilities of the company to handle things like creative editorial and visual effects. The result has been a wide range of work produced over the years, including a range of animated shorts with titles like "The Mechanics," "The Pirate," "The Light" and "The Tree" that are great showcases for talent and inspiration.
"In the end, our decision to build our future on creativity paid off," Skalnik says with a degree of pride. "Our bids for artists whose temperaments matched individual scripts soon began to win us jobs. We quickly grew to include our own 2D and 3D departments, along with what I'm convinced is currently the best character animation shop in the Czech Republic, as well as a live-action unit."
The studio now represents twenty directors overall, and over a dozen designers. It also collaborates regularly with other live action companies on jobs that call for visual effects and animation to be integrated with live action. The studio has 40 people on staff in its Prague headquarters, and maintains offices in Tokyo and Bratislava, Slovakia. While Eallin owns the majority stake of these outposts, Skalnik says they share ownership with local producers. "It's essential," he states, "so that we can tap into their knowledge of the local environment and their contacts."
The collaboration between the Eallin offices in Slovakia and Tokyo takes a variety of different shapes. "With the branch offices, we share our directors, designers and the production work," Skalnik notes, with some work being done locally and some handled by the team in Prague.
This allows them to mix visual motifs while producing the work in the most efficient manner possible, he notes. "For example, we can offer our European clients a conceptual solution in terms of Japanese aesthetics, which is exotic and popular here. And conversely, we're able to provide a Czech-style of animation in Japan, which is highly sought after there."
Its relationship with Nomad Films in India is another example of how Eallin has been extending its reach. The company has been actively seeking out creative resources to offer its clients in India, and has co-produced a number of projects with Eallin over the past few years. The irony of Nomad importing animation talent into India, which is known for its animation studios, is not lost on Skalnik. Most Indian animation work is done for feature films and TV programs, he points out. "And Nomad wants to provide the Indian agency community with access to talents from abroad," he notes. "In Eallin they found a firm that can provide a wide range of creators and a high quality of animation, while charging prices compatible with the Indian market."
In addition to its usual complement of TVC work- recent jobs include a Japanese spot for the broadcaster BS-TBS directed by Atsushi Makino, and a colorful spot for Tetrapak produced by Ogilvy in Moscow and directed by Carlos Lascano - Eallin is also in production on a TV series that will premiere on CT1, the state-run TV channel in the Czech Republic, next year. Titled "Small Elephant," it's inspired by African fairy tales and revolves around the bunch of cuddly jungle animals. "It should keep our 3D department busy for the next couple of years," Skalnik jokes. The series is being directed by Libor Pixa, a young Eallin director who was just selected as a finalist for the 2011 Foreign Student Film Awards that are handed out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in the US, the sponsors of the Oscars. (For more on the news, click here.) Pixa was nominated for "GraffiTiger," a short he produced while attending the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).
Another Eallin work in progress is "The Shadow of Blue," an animated short that's also being directed by Lascano. It's a fantasy film about the adventures of a young girl who's captured in a world of light, shadow and silhouette. Skalnik describes the film as "a combination involving stop-motion animation, with the juxtaposition of a human face, created and animated in 3D. Over the face we've superimposed human eyes, shot in traditional film. It is almost incredible how effective this combination of different techniques is, and how modern this marriage of classical and computer animation seems."
Lascano is also the director who's handling a major social cause TV spot Eallin just produced for the global human rights organization Amnesty International. The spot, which will be unveiled at an upcoming event in London and will air globally, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the founding AI. (The studio produced an animated piece for the organization's Small Places Tour in 2008.)
Like the "Shadow of Blue" film, the AI spot is a combination of animation techniques, Skalnik says. "It's based on classically shot scale models, brought to life by stop motion animation, old-school hand animation and 3D computer animation," he says. The music track is being provided by the feature film composer Hans Zimmer.
"Both of these projects embody the skill sets of our company," Skalnik says. "Thanks to our experience and to the large pool of talent we're lucky to draw on, we've produced work in a wide range of styles and animation techniques, which we like to combine in various ways as well as to juxtapose with live action."
So what are the trends in animation that Skalnik is seeing, based on the global footprint of Eallin and its work? "At the moment, all of us-clients, agencies and producers-are facing budget cuts, though I don't have the sense that this has degraded the overall creativity in a significant way," he observes. "What I feel now is a search for new solutions, and it seems to me that creatives in different agencies are embracing animation as one of the new ways."
Skalnik says that Eallin is seeing the same shift in animation for commercials from traditional hand-drawn cel styles to the more polished 3D look popularized in feature films. "It's marked by a very sophisticated computer animation look with an accent on the creative contribution by the designer," he notes.
This is also having an interesting backlash effect, he adds. "As the number of 3D TV spots increases, we're also seeing an increase in the number of concepts based on old-fashioned hand work, mostly stop motion animation and cutout animation." It's a promising development for both directors and eclectic animation houses like his that easily switch back and forth between genres and style, he suggests. "These are techniques," he sums up, "that enlarge the space for visual gesture and which show great potential in their uniqueness."
Published 12 May, 2011
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