With much of the commercials production industry forced to shut down during the COVID-19 lockdown, the Irish animation sector received a welcome boost as brands and agencies turned to animated content for their advertising campaigns.
One such company that saw an uptick in its business is the Dublin-based animation studio, Treehouse Republic which is headed up by Dale Robinson.
“The beauty of animation is that you don’t have to spend a fortune getting a camera crew to the bottom of the sea or the top of a mountain, with animation the only limit is your imagination. If you can think of it, we can bring it to life, whether that’s something as normal as a dog in a park or as bizarre as an alien cereal box on a distant planet. This all means that animation is the perfect solution for every brand and added to the current situation, we can work fully remotely and the social distancing lockdown rules haven’t slowed us down a bit, brands that previously only looked to live-action are now looking at animation as a solution,” says Robinson.
Set up in 2010 Treehouse Republic has grown into an award-winning team of creative animators and producers. Over the past ten years, it has produced over 15 hours of animated content ranging from TV commercials to short films and TV series. It was also recognised by Animation Magazine as one of the top 25 up and coming animation studios in the world.
While other commercial production companies went into hibernation for several months, Treehouse Republic has been busy, he says.
“Since the lockdown and we started working remotely, we have been inundated with emails from people looking to advertise and get their brands out there. A lot of companies and businesses are still operating remotely and online and want to get the message out that they are still open and in business. One project we recently finished for JWT Folk and its An Post commercial. This had a tight turnaround as it’s based on Covid 19 impact and how An Post are adapting. That’s another great thing about animation, with a little bit of smart thinking we can turn around a project very quickly,” says Robinson.
He adds that the company continues to be busy. “Right now we are working on various internal information videos for companies to show to their staff and a TV series for RTEJr, Hungry Bear Tales, and we’re always on the lookout for more projects to sink our teeth into,” he says.
