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flux in harmony

Flux Founder and Creative Director Brent Chambers says the cost of producing long form animation in any great quantity in New Zealand has, until now, been cost prohibitive. But Flux's recent investment in Toon Boom-Harmony is likely to halve costs and make Flux's New Zealand-produced animation more competitive on world markets.

Flux is the first New Zealand animation studio to invest in Toon Boom-Harmony. Flux chose to make a substantial investment in the new technology to "keep our fantastic team together and to keep us right up there with the best in the world", Brent Chambers says. "The Flux team went 'back to school' in-house to learn and become proficient in using Toon Boom-Harmony software."

The decision has already paid off. Using Toon Boom-Harmony, Flux is currently working on a new project for an Australian television company, a deal that was secured at a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise-sponsored trip to Kidscreen Summit in New York in February.

Toon Boom-Harmony 2D cut out animation software results in a 'paper free' environment in animation studios. It enables animators to create libraries of drawings that can be manipulated and moved within the computer, and replaces the traditional task of drawing thousands of images by hand. Flux staff has been trained in the new software during the past few months.

"The idea of a paper-free studio seems a little disturbing at first," says Brent, who trained doing hand-drawn animated cartoons for companies like Warner Brothers and Disney in the 1980s, "but the results can look indistinguishable from animation produced by traditional techniques. And, as you build up a library of re-usable animated movements, the quality is maintained but the cost becomes cheaper and the process faster."

Toon Boom-Harmony software has been embraced by a number of leading animation studios overseas: Disney is using the technology on remakes of vintage cartoon films and for animation of effects; Canadian entertainment company Nelvana uses it extensively to produce numerous children's animation series screened around the globe; and it was used for composition and effects on The Simpsons movie.

Flux's Animation Director for the project, Erica Lack, acquired experience of Toon Boom-Harmony while working for Brown Bag Studio in Ireland on a hit entertainment production for Nickelodeon, Wobbly Land.

"It is an amazing product and is being used by the biggest studios in the world" she says. "It has been created specifically for this niche market and gives the animator control of every area of production in one single programme. It is a big investment for a studio to make but will help us compete in today's tight market."