Maybe it’s because Loopmedia might have the brightest space among Toronto animation shops, or maybe it’s because there is a daycare in its downtown office building, but Loop’s latest spots are lighthearted and target a juvenile demographic.

The commercials also reflect the predominance of mixed-media spots over those done as pure animation.

The first of these is a 30-second ad for Nabisco Corn Nuts done through Toronto agency Harrod & Mirlin/FCB. The zany spot, directed by Spy Films’ Wade Sherman, is set in a classroom, where a student yearning for a crunchy snack starts chomping madly on his pencil. His poor judgment leads to an untimely demise, then a bag of Corn Nuts slams into the picture, landing on a scattered pile of the snack. In addition to creating a 3D-animated rendition of the bag, Loop also provided the animated pencil shards that fly out of the voracious boy’s mouth.

The other spot was ‘Power and Speed,’ done through Ogilvy & Mather for Mattel Hot Wheels. Director Alan Munro, out of U.S. production house Moving Target, shot the live-action, 15-second first half of the ad, which shows children playing with the toy cars. Loop created the entire second half of the spot, which displays the car packages against background graphics, pages of a collector’s book rifling by, and the Hot Wheels logo.

Other commercials in Loop’s library include a spot for Esso featuring the shop’s 3D elements combined with 2D animation of the Esso tiger mascot by Toronto’s Redrover Studios (before either shop had the capability to do the entire spot themselves), as well as a spot for KFC and one for Rogers Video heralding the release of the X-Men DVD.

Loop partner/executive producer Sonja Perovic reports that Loop opened its own 2D division last August. The shop has a full-time staff of eight, and can have just as many freelancers on board when bigger projects dictate.

Another one of the shop’s more complex recent projects was material for Moviehead, a ‘mini-show’ that bookends specialty channel Moviepix’s Friday night film presentation. The elements, which include a 2D character-animated rendition of the show’s real-life host arriving in a pink limo at a movie theatre, were used for bumpers, the show opener, and promotional spots for the program.

Working with Astral Media creative director Heather Senst, Loop sought a 1950s feel for the Moviehead design, and partner/director Jeff Bastedo found the Internet a useful resource for reference. The point was to capture Moviehead’s retro, hip, witty, movie-crazy tone, and to that end Loop began with a muted color palette that evolved during the production process toward blue and green with punchy accents of orange and pink.

Loop achieved the piece in the traditional 2D on-paper process, with cleaning and coloring done in Adobe Illustrator. It then imported the work into After Effects for compositing, and performed final assembly in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Bastedo thinks Loop’s work on Moviehead is indicative of its overall style.

‘It’s playful,’ he says. ‘We poke fun at things and we’re not taking ourselves too seriously. We’re doing a lot of character stuff and when we do design work we try to throw in some quirkiness.’

In the current multimedia landscape, Loop promotes itself as active in the areas of not only character animation, but also installations (for clients including the Royal Ontario Museum and CN Tower) and architectural visualization. Broadcast design actually accounts for much of the shop’s workload.

‘There are so many networks on air right now with all the digital channels, and it’s a pretty competitive marketplace,’ notes Loop producer Tony Graham. ‘A channel that redid its on-air package a couple of years ago is not likely to stay with that for five or 10 years. Three or four years down the road it’s going to be time to update.’

As with many shops, Loop is pursuing the Holy Grail of content creation, with a children’s program in the works called Web World, aimed at traditional broadcast. Bastedo feels the program’s setting in a Web-based network community will make it an easy fit for an Internet incarnation as well. The shop dedicates one day a week to working on the show.

‘It’s a cross between Tim Burton, Dr. Seuss and Brazil,’ Bastedo explains.

‘We’re working out the financing deals,’ Perovic adds. ‘It’s probably going to take us another year or two, but we’re definitely committed to this project.’

Web World incorporates some fantastical 3D characters, which Loop builds primarily with Side Effects’ Houdini software. The shop sometimes uses Alias|Wavefront’s Maya as well.

‘We find [Houdini] very robust,’ Bastedo says. ‘Technically you can get anything you want out of it. There aren’t any limitations to the software.’

Perovic says that regardless of Loop’s future success in long form, it doesn’t plan to relinquish its commercial gigs.

‘We’re definitely going to keep a broadcast division and a commercial division,’ she insists. ‘I just came back from the Promax&BDA conference in Miami, and, if anything, solidified our going more international in that area.’

Loop is in the process of redesigning its website, which will relaunch in the fall. One new feature will be a ‘how-to’ section illustrating the shop’s techniques in realizing its 2D and 3D animation. *

-www.loopmedia.com