We make animated films for institutions that take their subjects seriously. The work begins on the page, with the source material, and stays close to it through every phase that follows.
Most studios are asked to read the brief, a one-page summary written by the comms department. We ask for the paper, the catalogue, the testimony, the grant proposal. We mark what's load-bearing. We ask the scholar what we're missing. Pre-production is roughly thirty percent of our budget on every project, and it's where the film earns its credibility.
A four-minute film carries about 500 words of voiceover; a 40-page paper has 12,000. The compression is brutal. Our first decision on every project is what the film is for, not what it covers. One audience, one purpose. We defend that decision against scope creep for the rest of the project.
Scholars are extraordinarily good at script collaboration when you ask them properly, about structure first, voiceover second. We send a structural outline before we draft a line. We do two or three rounds before storyboarding. The script doesn't lock until the scholar says it does.
The visual language comes from the material itself, its archive, its register, its texture. We don't pick a house style and apply it; we let the subject decide what the film looks like. This is why our work doesn't all look like our other work.
The scholarly voice is in the room from the first script meeting to the final mix, not consulted at milestones, but co-authoring. By the time the film is finished, it belongs to your institution as much as to ours.
Original music, written for the subject by our in-house composer Eitan Shefer, on every project. Never library. The score is the part of the film that the audience cannot quite explain but always feels.
This is the part we cannot scale and won't try to. Our work travels in the rooms it travels in because of how closely the studio is involved in every script. That doesn't change.
| Phase | What happens | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Source week | Read the material. Map claims, hedges, omissions. Discuss with the scholar. | ~10% |
| Framing | What the film is for. One audience, one purpose. Structural outline. | ~10% |
| Script | Two or three rounds with the scholar. Locks only on their sign-off. | ~10% |
| Design & storyboard | Visual language derived from the source. Boards before any animation. | ~15% |
| Animation | In-house team. Illustrators, animators, designers. | ~35% |
| Sound & finish | Original score, voiceover, edit, color, mix. | ~15% |
| Delivery & versions | Master, social cuts, captions, language versions. | ~5% |
Pricing is anchored on the work, not the runtime, we'll talk about budget once we've talked about the source.
The full methodology essay, What animating a peer-reviewed paper actually involves, is a ten-minute read. It is, honestly, the best way to understand whether we're the right studio for your project.