Brown Bag Films, the animation studio famous for preschool shows such as Daniel Tiger Neighborhood and Dr. McStuffinssetting its sights on the adult animation market.
The company announced the launch of Bad Pencil Animation, which will focus on adult animated series and films, on Monday at the Annecy Animation Festival (a sampling of the studio’s work is here). The new label will focus on service work to support clients and creatives in realizing projects targeting older audiences.
“Bad Pencil Animation is about creating a space for a different kind of storytelling within Brown Bag Films,” said Sanatan Suryavanshi, Executive Creative Director, Brown Bag Films. He will also lead creative design for Bad Pencil. “There’s an incredible opportunity now to push into new creative territory – stories that can be darker, weirder or more diverse in tone – while building on the same level of craftsmanship and quality that the studio is known for. We already have the talent, craftsmanship and pipeline across our studios to support this kind of work at scale, across both 2D and computer graphics, and Bad Pencil gives us a focused way to help our clients bring these stories to screen.”
Suryavanshi will report to Brown Bag co-founder and group creative director Darragh O’Connell. Nicole Gibbs, vice president of studio strategy, will lead sales. Kaitlin Friedman, executive vice president of global production for Brown Bag and current executive vice president of its parent company, Scholastic, will oversee Bad Pencil’s strategic direction.
Bad Pencil will “provide a home for projects that speak to older audiences, new partners and new platforms. Across our studios, we have an incredible depth of artistic and technical talent with experience spanning a wide range of styles and genres, and this initiative allows us to fully leverage that ability to support clients in this growing animation market.”
Brown Bag Films has studios in Toronto, Dublin and Bali. The company is part of Scholastic. Its Toronto studio operates as a business unit of 9 Story Media Group.
