After ruling out a name that had to do with furry brown squirrel parts, two of Toronto’s bright animation lights have picked Head Gear as the handle for their new animation boutique.

Head Gear Animation, the creation of Steve Angel and Julian Grey, both formerly senior directors at Toronto’s Cuppa Coffee Animation, will aim what its principals call innovative and stylistically diverse animation services at the high-end commercial and broadcast design markets. The new shop will be a standalone company associated with TOPIX Computer Graphics and Animation and shares topix’s new address on McCaul Street.

Angel and Grey are both versed in the organic, mixed media animation style which garnered the artists and Cuppa Coffee a number of awards during their three years at that company. Both worked on the popular Geo car campaigns, which earned bronze BDA Awards. Angel has two gold bda’s for Magic Doors and Bell spots, and Grey’s work on a spot for Arts Week 96 and for Shopper’s Drug Mart’s ‘Slam Seats’ won bda silver and recognition at the World Animation Celebration.

Recently, Grey worked on a major broadcast redesign for Disney Channel in the u.s. and Angel spearheaded Sam Digital in the Twentieth Century, a short film for Nickelodeon. The pair departed Cuppa Coffee in May and thereafter decided to pool their talents and what Grey calls a similar esthetic and agreement on artistic directions.

‘We want to continue on with the kinds of work we’ve done in the past, with cool innovative twists on traditional animation’ says Angel. ‘We want to keep the great client list we’ve had and expand it. We want to reemerge in Toronto and for people to put our faces and names to the work we’ve been doing.’

Angel says the shop will offer a wide range of animation styles including stop motion, claymation and cel, along with cost-effective post-production techniques.

‘The thinking is whatever kind of animation we have to do, we can. We can make up a new way of doing it every time,’ says Angel. ‘Our whole take on this is experimentation and innovation and mixed media. We’re not closed to anything.’

Head Gear’s equipment will likely consist of a networked camera/digital disc recorder setup linked to Mac hardware, which Grey says will provide latitude in terms of editing and digital effects and will also likely run Adobe After Effects compositing, animation and effects software.

‘The idea is to have a self-enclosed system where we have a lot of control of every step along the production chain and where we’re really efficient with how we use things and treat the image,’ says Grey.

The shop will also have access to the talent and high-end compositing and effects gear at topix. ‘We’re excited about working on projects with them and the reciprocal is true,’ says Angel. ‘We’ll be dipping into their talent pool to make a really strong company.’

The duo have already completed a pair of international Coke spots for Japan and India, shot this summer.

A call from Leo Burnett and Backyard Animation, both in Chicago, precipitated the Japanese spot, which brought the team to Tokyo to shoot the ad’s different elements.

Thereafter, Head Gear worked with Leo Chicago and Leo Bombay on a Coke spot for India on which the pair acted as codirectors. The spots are part of Coke’s international ‘lyric logos’ campaign using culturally specific creative to target youth in each country. Angel and Grey spent two weeks in Bombay (during monsoon season) for the live-action/ animation India spot, shooting live action as ‘pixelation, treated video, photo sequences mixed with collage/montage type stuff,’ and two weeks posting in Chicago.

Angel and Grey are backing the new venture with topix chief Chris Wallace as a minority partner and the two animators are looking to bring on a pair of producers.

An early practitioner of the art, Angel began animating at age 10 and had the benefit of six years under the tutelage of Academy Award-winning National Film Board animator Eugene Federenko. After studying art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and attending Parson’s School of Design in New York, Angel became one of the cofounders of Shift Magazine before going to Cuppa Coffee. He has also worked as a contributing editorial illustrator for the Globe and Mail.

Prior to Cuppa Coffee, Grey was senior graphic designer at Le Mot Dessine in Montreal, studied art at Concordia University, and brings a background in art, design and illustration.