Colour me surprised with this one because the latest company to set up an animation “studio” is in fact, a Formula One racing team. That’s right, McLaren have set up their own animation studio (with the heavy lifting done by Framestore) and have been running shorts before grand prix races in the UK over the last couple of months.
I found this out via a post on Skiddmarks and thought it was quite interesting that a major racing team in a sport with a fairly devoted fanbase (the casual ones among us gave up in the id 90s when overtaking disappeared and the cars started to sprout aerofoils like a third eye) would turn to animation to help boost their profile.
Sadly the episodes of ‘Tooned’ (geddit?) aren’t broadcast in the US (mainly because American’s like to race in circles and have a general dislike for Formula One anyway) but thankfully someone is putting them on YouTube. The first one is below:
What do you think? Do they do a good job of raising the team’s profile? Is their choice of animation over say, live-action appropriate? What exactly do you think the shorts are supposed to do besides entertain? Leave a comment below!
Formula One animation is a startling idea, but why not? The more studios, the more jobs. I think department stores and banks should also have animation studios (imagine the scripts for banks!). I liked this short even though animation was a tad stiff—was mocap involved? It was entertaining and made me aware of McLaren, anyway.
I don’t think mo-cap was involved, it isn’t mentioned in the making-of video on the Skiddmarks site.