Lupus films: behind the magic

When thinking of creating a hand-drawn, coloured pencil animation, it would be a massive oversight not to consider the adaptations of Raymond Briggs' story, The Snowman from the 1980s, and its more recent sequel, The Snowman and The Snowdog made by Lupus Films, based in Shoreditch, London. This animation company specialises in 2D hand-rendered animation, but brings it into the modern day by compositing traditional hand-drawn images with digitally rendered bases and after effects skills in editing. This standard of production is most definitely not a solo project, but it's good to be inspired!

This is the only company I'm currently aware of who embrace the 2D traditional techniques so intensely, but it's working for them. They're about to start production of another Raymond Briggs adaptation, Ethel and Ernest, which looks just as beautiful and true to the original illustrative style as The Snowman and The Snowdog was. Lupus Films' website hosts a video link of the making of the snowdog, which has some slightly awe-inspiring and unexpected insights into how a film like this goes through production. Definitely there are some technical and process practices that I could adopt in my own work from this studio's approach. http://www.lupusfilms.com/productions 

The level of collaboration and trust on this project is really lovely. In terms of career aims, a studio like this would be my dream after graduation, because the years of experience under one roof would give invaluable insider advice to a newbie like myself. By way of technical skill I always think that praxis (the learn-by-doing approach) is the best way to pick up a new skill quickly, and in a studio like Lupus, I can't imagine there being a lack of teachers. Something to aim for indeed!