September 2008 Who needs a milk mustache to get healthy? DDB Canada’s Vancouver office is set to break the latest broadcast spots in its popular “Must Drink More Milk” campaign, aimed at positioning moo juice as a smart beverage alternative for the soft-drink set. Two new thirty-second stop motion commercials directed by Abraham Spear roll out this month, titled “Giant Monster” and “Foosball.” You can see them here. A continuation of an ambitious, integrated campaign that broke earlier this spring, the campaign includes three more commercials that will debut later this year and early in 2009.

Rock Band 2 hits the shelves this month, and like its predecessor becomes an instant hit. Once again, the game is driven by motion capture animation produced entirely at Curious Pictures. The game now includes expanded playlists and capability of letting players download music tracks to add to the game, building their own library of tunes. The game also features enhanced performance capabilities and more flat-out great rock and roll animation.

Curious director Christopher Mills seems an unlikely candidate for a retrospective, given that he’s only in his thirties, but his mix of animation, live action and visual effects work has been so influential that the Ottawa International Animation Festival decided to salute him anyway. Their screening of his work, 101 Uses for a Sparkler, was held at the festival last month in Canada. Mils videos are a rich combination of live-action, 2D and 3D animation. The retrospective highlighted his work with a diverse list of independent and major label artists including Rush, The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Mandy Moore, Modest Mouse, Interpol, Broken Social Scene and one of Ottawa's most exciting new bands, The Acorn. The festival noted in its announcement that his work has been recognized with many music video nominations, including the MTV Awards, Much Music Video Awards and the Juno Awards.

August 2008 Just in time to appreciate the Democratic and Republican national conventions, Roadside Attractions releases Chicago 10 on DVD this month. The groundbreaking documentary from director Brett Morgen includes a full half-hour of motion capture animation produced at Curious Pictures. It opened the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and drew considerable attention for its radical mix of archival footage and mo-cap animation, all driven by a post-modern punk-rock soundtrack. The film opened theatrically earlier this year and played to strong reviews.

July 2008 Director man vs magnet’s captivating all-type web short for The Girl Effect, produced for Nike Foundation and Wieden + Kennedy, explodes across the blogosphere. This compelling film anchors a web site dedicated to explaining how adolescent girls around the world can be a powerful force to bring about social and economic change. You can see it at http://www.girleffect.org/#/video/. The subject of countless blog entries, the controversial and powerful statements made in this film resonated with audiences globally.

June 2008 Cue the applause sign: Curious directorial team Fresh Paint’s “31 Days of Oscar’ promo for Turner Classic Movies was the runaway hit of the Promax/BDA conference in New York last week. Not only did the piece win two Golds in the association’s design competition—on top of being named a finalist in the One Show Design competition—but ‘Oscar’ also received thunderous applause at every screening, and was the final spot shown at a special juried screening of groundbreaking new work in broadcast promotion. Congratulations to directors Kevin Robinson and Mike Papagni and everyone at Turner Classic Movies who collaborated on this great achievement.

At the annual Promax/BDA conference this month in New York, directing team Fresh Paint’s “31 Days of Oscars” promo for Turner Classic Movies was chosen for the “State of Design” showcase of the best motion graphics work from around the world.  The collection was curated and presented by Justin Cone, editor of Motionographer.com, who featured it prominently on his web site when the piece first broke. 

Curious welcomes its new Head of Production John Cline to the staff this month.  A former senior agency producer at JWT and Fallon, John was most recently head of production at New York office of the global boutique agency Nitro.  Prior to moving over to the agency side, John worked his way up the production ranks at a number of production companies, most recently serving as executive producer for Optic Nerve.  He’ll oversee all commercial, broadcast promo, music video and branded content production for the studio.

Philippe Grammaticopolous of Mr Hyde @ Curious was one of the new directors honored to be included in SHOOT’s New Directors Showcase screening at the DGC Building in New York late last month.

May 2008 The Amnesty International spot directed by Mr. Hyde's Phillipe Grammaticopolous for TBWA Paris won a Gold Pencil at the One Show May 7. This honor follows comes on top of winning the first-ever Socially Responsible Communications Grand Prix from the International Advertising Association’s World Congress in April. Directing team Fresh Paint also did well this month: Their spot advertising Turner Classic Movies and its "31 Days Of Oscar" promo was named a finalist at One Show Design, one of the most competitive design competitions in the country.

Nominations for the Daytime Emmy Awards have just been announced, and Little Einsteins is in the hunt! The program, produced by Curious for the Playhouse Disney channel, was nominated in the Children’s Animated Programs category. Congratulations go to Eric Weiner, Kris Greengrove and the entire Little Einsteins team for this recognition. The winners will be announced on June 20 in a live telecast carried on ABC, so tune in then to see if we bring home more gold.

April 2008 Curious Pictures congratulates Mr. Hyde director Nicolas Lesaffre, who was a runner-up for the 2008 First Boards Awards in the animation category. We think the world of Nicolas and his work, and so do the mag’s editors. Here’s what they had to say: “The richly inventive, beautifully detailed animation in ‘The Cast,’ his commercial debut in 2007 for Match.com, shows off his technical virtuosity at creating engaging worlds. ‘Vinyl's Attack,’ a black-and-white King Kong-styled short film, shows his breadth and variety, while the simple but sweetly funny ‘Sneeze’ for Halls Naturals shows his talent at believably comic character design.” Check out his reel and you can see what all the fuss is about.

Madrid-based tabletop director Yann Malka joins the Curious Pictures roster. A second-generation filmmaking talent who has also studied music and composition, Yann’s work is a unique blend of animation, visual effects and gorgeous cinematography. Internationally recognized, he was included in the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase in 2004.

March 2008 As the reviews continue to pour in for Brett Morgen's "Chicago 10," Curious' work on the animated portions of this post-modern documentary were honored this month at the Cinema Eye Awards for nonfiction filmmaking, where it won the top award for Outstanding Achievement in Graphics and Animation. On hand at the IFC Center in New York to accept the award were Richard Winkler and Lewis Kofsky, on behalf of the entire mo-cap team at Curious. A full list of Cinema Eye winners can be found at
cinemaeyeawards.com/awards/winners.html

Director Osbert Parker’s animated short “Yours Truly” has racked up another impressive honor, being named Best Short Film at the British Animation Awards ceremony this month. The film-noir piece has been honored at festivals around the world. For a full list of winners, go to www.britishanimationawards.com.

Director Ro Rao is one of the finalists at the prestigious Annecy Animation Festival for his animated short, "Laika," for the Zune Arts web site and agency 72 and Sunny. The short list was announced mid
March, and the festival takes place June 9-14 in Annecy, France.

February 2008 Chicago 10, which kicked off Sundance in 2007, opened theatrically on February 29. The feature documentary was directed by Brett Morgen and tells the story of the infamous 1968 protests at the Democratic convention, and subsequent trial of the "Chicago 7."

Curious developed a hybrid of motion capture and animation to produce almost half the scenes in the film.

January 2008 Josh Raskin, of directing team play airways, was nominated for an Oscar January 22 for his animated short film, "I Met The Walrus." The film is animated to an audiotaped interview that a teenager made when he sneaked into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto in 1969. Curious represents
play airways through the Electric Company.

Also honored in January was Osbert Parker's "Yours Truly," which re-named "Head Over Heels" received a nomination for best animated short film from the British Academy of Film and Television. Both of these shorts were previously honored at Sundance and other international film festivals this past year.

Ever drift off to sleep thinking about those stop-motion animated counting sheep in the Serta commercials? We’ll bet Michael Wright does. He’s the UK-based live action and animation director who was responsible for many of those TV spots from W. B. Doner, along with animated work for Chevron, Jack in the Box and other clients. He’s signed on with Curious, where we’ve welcomed him with open arms and fluffy pillows.

Work from Curious directors made an almost clean sweep in the mixed media category at the prestigious OneScreen Festival in New York last month. Sponsored by The One Club, the festival honors short films made by people who also work in various aspects of the advertising world. Osbert Parker’s much-awarded “Film Noir” was the category winner, while first runner-up honors went to Stefan Nadelman’s “Evil Bee” music video for Menomena and third runner up went to “True Love Will Find You in the End,” a video for iconoclastic Texas rocker Daniel Johnson directed by Rohitash Rao.

Add two more eclectic talents to the Curious roster: Music video director Christopher Mills has joined, as has digital artist-turned director Dave Rasura. Chris got his start by creating visuals, installations and music videos for bands and music festivals, and his work for such artists as Interpol and Modest Mouse has been nominated for MTV awards. Dave’s work incorporates type design, animation and live action, as evidenced in spots he directed for such clients as Coke, Urban Outfitters, Radio Shack and Volkswagen. He started in the business as a 3-D animator on the Nickelodeon hit “Jimmy Neutron,” before moving to New York, where he began to experiment with live action and motion graphics. His first directing assignment for Curious was a Dell spot from Mother that runs on the brand’s website.

January 2008 Award-winning children’s book author, illustrator, cartoonist and program creator Mo Willems is at it again. Two of his most recent children’s books, both published by Disney’s Hyperion imprint, have been recognized with major awards. “Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity” has been awarded a Caldecott Honor for 2008, and his “There Is a Bird on Your Head” was presented with the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. The Caldecott honors are presented annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture books for children. The Geisel Award, presented by the American Library Association, is given annually to the author and illustrator of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.

December 2007 Alex Cross, the fictional detective created by bestselling author James Patterson, is about to get some competition. It’s Beer Belly, a hapless, overweight slacker who’s the central character in “Beer Belly and Fat Boy,” a new animated/live action adventure film currently in development by Curious Pictures and James Patterson Entertainment. The studio and JPE just announced their new co-production partnership on the website of entertainment industry bible Variety, in which Curious will produce a variety of projects from the creator of ABC’s “Women’s Murder Club” and author of such best sellers as “Kiss the Girls” and “Along Came a Spider,” both of which were adapted into major motion pictures. Working with characters and stories from Jim’s books, graphic novels and other original creations, Curious will adapt them into movies, video games and other forms of animated motion media. “Beer Belly and Fat Boy” is the first in a series of feature-related projects Curious plans to roll out next year.

December 2007 Sean Pecknold becomes the newest director to join the Curious roster of talent. A Seattle-based filmmaker who recently relocated to New York, Pecknold was formerly part of a directing team called Milk. Largely self-taught, Sean’s work is a mix of hand-drawn, 2D and 3D animation as well as live action. His introduction to film came while he was working as an editor on projects for The History Channel, National Geographic Channel and The Travel Channel. As a solo director, his trailer for the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle was included in the Stash reel of outstanding animation and effect work. Other standout projects on his reel include an engaging web spot about a game-addicted youth named Francois, produced for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

November 2007 Just in time for holiday gift-giving madness, the highly anticipated new video game Rock Band™ released this month, from Harmonix and MTV. The game features hours and hours of motion capture animation of real musicians playing in a variety of rock ‘n roll genres, all produced by Curious Pictures. Rock Band™ players use a game peripheral that mimics their real-life counterparts in the game environment, where they can rock out on bass, lead guitar, vocals and drums to tunes from such legendary artists as The Who, David Bowie, Bon Jovi, Nirvana and the Strokes. Curious’ mo-cap and CGI teams auditioned bar bands in New York and L.A. to cast the musicians whose performances make up the game segments. Talk about a tough assignment.

The International Animated Film Society-ASIFA Hollywood announced its nominees for the 35th annual Annie Award, and Curious’ “Little Einsteins,” produced for the Disney channel, was nominated in the category of Best Animated Television Production for Children. We’ve got our fingers crossed for bringing home the award when the Annies are presented in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Royce Hall this February. Stay tuned to this space for more info. For a full list of Annie nominees, go to www.annieawards.org.

October 2007 BBDO/New York breaks an integrated new campaign for Half.com, the used book web site that’s owned by eBay. The campaign includes three two-minute web shorts animated by Curious directors Rohitash Rao and Abraham Spear. Using the style of old-school educational films complete with a bombastic voiceover announcer and melodramatic music, the spots detail the peril of students who get hooked on their textbooks (all purchased at incredible savings on Half.com) and become slaves to such subjects at political science, math and history. Ad Age’s Creativity covered the campaign in both its print and online editions.

October 2007 The work of Curious Pictures and its directors is highly visible at the Chicago International Film Festival this month, as Brett Morgen’s “Chicago 10” is plays a prominent role in the screenings and is widely reviewed. Separately, Roadside Attractions, the film distribution company, announces a February 2008 theatrical release for the film, which includes a half-hour of groundbreaking mo-cap work all shot on the mo-cap stage at Curious. To accompany that, director Osbert Parker’s short film “Yours Truly,” wins the Gold Plaque in the Animated Short Film competition at the Festival.

September 2007 Executive Producer Mary Knox announces a restructuring of the Curious sales presence in the Midwest. Independent rep Carolyn Hill takes over Detroit, with staff rep John Robertson taking over responsibilities for Chicago and all other Midwest regions, with the exception of Minneapolis, which will be handled by Mary herself. The studio continues to be repped for commercials on the West Coast by Andrea Andrews of Where’s The Boards, while Hesty Liebtag of Hesty Reps provides ongoing sales coverage in Toronto.

September 2007 Curious director Kenan Moran delivers a three-spot public service campaign dubbed “Cause Change” for cable network TVLand. The comic spots lampoon people who talk about wanting to do volunteer work but always have an excuse for not getting around to it. As we hear them rattle on about how busy they are, the camera pulls back to reveal that each is sitting on a donkey. The voiceover then suggests that they ‘get off their’ you-know-what’s (with the word ‘ass’ substituted by a loud ‘hee-haw’ sound effect) and do something good for society. Learn more about the effort at www.tvland.com/causechange/.

September 2007 Curious Pictures director Stefan Nadelman breaks ground this month with an innovative way to launch a music video—on the web site of an apparel company. PF Flyers—the iconic sneaker brand of the ‘60s and ‘70s, updated for a new generation of young people—backed the production of Stefan’s stop-motion wonder titled “Evil Bee,” produced for the Portland-based trio Menomena. The video, which debuted on the PF Flyers web site and can be seen at http://pfflyers.com/culture.html, explores the darker side of life for a worker bee.

July 2007 Karina Kliss joins Curious Pictures as Head of Film & TV Development.  Prior she was at Starz Animation, and before that IDT Entertainment, where she worked as a development and creative executive.  She started her career at Miramax Films, where she spent four years in production and development.  Her mission is to identify and nurture feature film and TV series opportunities for the studio, working with both our roster of directors and many of the talented content creators with which we have longstanding relationships.  She’s also on the hunt for new talents from outside the world of animation and mixed-media production.

June 2007  At the Cannes Lions Festival, Curious’ talents are well represented: Josh Raskin, of the directing trio Play Airways, represented in the U.S. by Curious via its relationship with Toronto’s Electric Company, is included in the influential Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase.  Meanwhile, the viral sensation “Battle of the Album Covers,” an animated short produced by Ugly Pictures for last September’s Advertising Week event in New York, lands on the Cannes Cyber Lions shortlist, while an animated PSA for Amnesty International directed by Philippe Grammaticopoulis of European production company Mr. Hyde wins a Gold Lion for agency TBWA\Paris.  Mr. Hyde is also repped in the U.S. by Curious.

June 2007 Superstar adman and talk show host Donny Deutsch visits the studio to be shot on our motion capture stage for a segment on animation production on his “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” CNBC series.

May 2007 VH1 airs its “Rock Honors” special with animated titles and on-air promos designed and directed by Ugly Pictures.  The project entailed creating surreal environments to introduce segments on the show’s four honorees: Genesis, ZZ Top, Heart and Ozzy Osbourne.

May 2007 Curious welcomes noted tabletop director Greg Ramsey, who joins from live action production company Celsius Films.  Greg is looking forward to working closely with our CG and design capabilities in his highly visible work for top ad agencies and brands.

May 2007 Meet the Crunchers: a new campaign for Crunch Fitness from New York ad agency Mother centers around “The Crunchers,” a group of fitness club denizens, each with his or her own quirky character traits.  The characters were developed jointly by the agency and Curious directors Ugly Pictures, who not only directed a seven-spot stop-motion TV campaign featuring them, but also shot the print and outdoor ads as well.  The spots resemble mini-sitcoms instead of traditional ads, and the characters are also featured on the Crunch web site. 

April 2007 Legendary mixed-media director Osbert Parker signs on with Curious.  Well known for his TV commercials for Budweiser, Coke and Nike, Parker has spent the last several years concentrating on his two short films, “Film Noir” and “Yours Truly,” both of which have won praise and awards at film and animation festivals around the world.

April 2007 Becky Friedman joins Curious as our new Head of Production, crossing over to the production company side from her post as a senior producer at BBDO.  Becky has over a decade of experience as an agency producer, promising to not only strengthen the studio’s production expertise but also to bring a new perspective to evaluating and bidding storyboards.

April 2007 Our game just launched! Play it here and read about it here...

March 2007 With April comes the animation festivals, and work from Curious Pictures' directors will be bursting out all over. At the International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France, Little Fluffy Clouds' interstitial piece for the Sundance Channel and ad agency JWT will be included in the screenings, as will Ugly Picture's "Battle of the Album Covers," originally produced as the intro to an event at last September's Advertising Week in New York. Also, two selections produced by Mr. Hyde, the French animation boutique recently signed by Curious Pictures, were also chosen for the festival program. Meanwhile, over in Positano, Italy, the annual Cartoons On the Bay animation festival will screen episodes from Mr. Warburton's "Codename: Kids Next Door" and from "Little Einsteins." The work will be appearing under the TV series and TV special sections of the Festival program, which includes animated fare from around the world.

February 2007 To celebrate Vice President Dick Cheney’s birthday, AtomFilms and Curious Pictures premiered the new Ugly Pictures animated short "Chicks with Dick" on January 30. Seen exclusively on Atom Films, the short tells the story of what happened on that fateful Texas hunting trip when the Veep shot his friend’s face off.

January 2007 "Chicago 10" premiered January 18th at the Sundance Film Festival. Only the second documentary to open the festival in its 29-year history, "Chicago 10" features 25 minutes of innovative motion capture animation produced entirely at Curious. The Curious computer graphics team of animators and designers combined proprietary motion capture technology with a distinctive hand-drawn look to produce animated segments used to recreate the courtroom scenes of the notorious trial of the Chicago 10 protesters.