Studio AKA and Philip Hunt
Philip Hunt takes Skwigly around the Studio best known for its creative excellence to talk about the past, the present and the future…
According to the erudite tome ‘Animation Now,’ Studio AKA not only ‘as far as commercial animation is concerned have few rivals in the country’ but are also the ‘one good reason to watch television in the United Kingdom’. Whilst one could argue against the latter there is no doubt that Studio AKA, with a creative staff of thirty five and a studio building in the heart of Soho that would be the envy of many an advertising company, is an animation success story.
Philip Hunt heads up a most impressive team of animation directors including Marc Craste, best known for the multi award winning ‘Jo Jo in the Stars’ and ‘Grant Orchard’ who has recently been a creative consultant on ‘Monkey Dust’. Whilst Philip Hunt is at pains to point out that the commercials animation remains their ‘bread and butter’ they are a studio that is fully committed to the jam of the creative animation process and will never become merely a technical adjunct to an advertising agency. Their portfolio of commercials is impressive by any standards and range from the ‘simple’ but annoyingly effective BBC2 ident, which must rate as the most celebrated number in animation to the more complicated such as the beautiful looking Orange campaign. Philip Hunt and his team are most adept at the thirty second gem and he feels that they are ‘lucky in a lot’ of their commercials work, although he adds that the freedom to express themselves as animators will vary enormously from project to project. In his view the best brief from a ‘creative’ will steer the animator in the right direction, although he is very wary of the ad executive who has been ‘hanging out in Magma Books too long’. Philip is also keen to emphasis that a commercial animation must never lose sight of the factthat it is an ad at heart.
“As soon as you treat it as art you are sunk,” he says, “there is nothing worse than a brilliant car ad for a car you can’t remember the name of!” Ironically though Philip is currently working on an ad for BMW where the client is keen to treat the project as a piece of stand alone animation. Philip finds himself in the unusual position of arguing against this and having a creative tension pulling in an unexpected direction.
Studio AKA are used to working with ad execs who don’t understand the language of animation. Philips first question to them is something along the lines of do you want us to “laugh, stun or confuse?” Whilst known and respected for the commercials work, the directors at Studio AKA are encouraged to pursue individual projects not only to guard against becoming stale and frustrated but also to allow the development of ideas that will benefit that ‘bread and butter’. ‘Jo Jo in the Stars’ is a classic case in point. Beginning life as a pitch for a TV commercial which came to nothing, Marc Craste pitched the original Pica Towers shorts to Channel 4 who passed on it. Sensing that this was the “kind of work we would do if we could”, Studio AKA took the plunge and self financed Jo Jo. This hunch paid off nicely because it not only gathered the plaudits but has acted as a ‘flagship’ for the studio. More such projects, building on Jo Jo are under secretive wraps!
Philip Hunt is remarkably focused as the nominal head of such a diverse creative team. With a background in stop motion, Phillip with his colleagues have made a conscious decision to move into 3D as well as a conscious decision not to move completely out of 2D. ”Computer animation is not evil but it is a very common mistake to believe that 3D is easy”. Indeed Philip finds that 3D can be a very complex process because it relies upon “so many people hitting the right point at the right time”. Aside from the small matter of finding more space in Soho, Philip doesn’t rule out the possibility of a return to stopmotion “if the project is right”. In his early years Philip was fortunate enough to blag an animator in residence slot in Stuttgart and two of his pupils later turned up with the much lauded and brilliantly original ‘Annie and Boo.
Since then Studio AKA have represented Studio Soi, the team behind it and animation fans will be delighted to hear that a longer form piece is at a certain point in a certain pipeline. However Studio AKA have generally shied away from representing outside animators. Not just because others such as Nexus “do this so well” but also because Studio AKA are very committed to developing talent from within (“it is amazing what a runner will suddenly come up with”). Studio AKA are happy to nurture the right talent, animators who have that extra something. CG may have changed the tools that are used but for Philip Hunt, an animator who finds Polar Express “astonishing but lifeless”, “you can’t buy the idea or the execution”. Indeed as an animator Philip is very strongly drawn to the European story telling form rather than the feature film tradition that exists in the US. This would certainly explain Studio AKAs commitment to the short film which they are happy to champion. As yet another Miyazaki fan (why would you not be?), Philip feels that any UK tradition that there is is far closer to anime than any other form. Like others he wonders where a reforming of anime using other styles will take animation over the next few years.
Wherever animation goes it is pretty clear that Studio AKA will continue to lead the way in commercial animation and Philip Hunt is excited about the future of animation in this country, “CG has only just begun creatively” and although we have come to terms with the technical side the process doesn’t stop with The Incredibles. No doubt Studio AKA will also continue as a hothouse of animation talent and when Phillip Hunt leads the charge in a return to stop motion, there will be a fair few right behind him!