"Animation and art runs through us all": Inside the world of Bomper studio

There’s something happening in Wales right now as new creative shoots begin to emerge in the animation industry. One of those bright shoots is Bomper Studio, an indie animation setup based in Caerphilly.

Recently, 3D World had the opportunity to hold a deep-dive conversation with Emlyn Davies, Bomper’s founder and executive creative director, and technical animator Mark Procter about the studio’s creative spirit, as well as its emerging position within the Welsh animation industry. It’s a thoughtful and inspiring introspection about making the creative leap.

Of Bomper’s earliest days, Emlyn recalls: “We started out at a place called Welsh ICE, which was a bit like a business incubation centre. At ICE, the space was free for the first year.” For him, having an early-days’ base at ICE was a “complete step change. Everyone there was on the same road.” Emlyn notes that the other step change moment that followed was when he hired his first member of staff. “Employing our first person was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, because of the level of responsibility,” he adds.

In developing an identity for Bomper, Emlyn says: “Because I’d built up my contacts, and Cadbury Bournville having dissolved the design studio, people started calling me to do work. I think our first job was for Sensodyne. Having that as a first client was quite a big deal.”

Now in its 10th anniversary year, Bomper finds itself gaining evermore critical mass. “We’re now at 10 full-time staff and use 30-40 freelance staff on different projects,” Emlyn explains. This increasing creative energy and the studio’s place in the industry is not lost on Emlyn, who adds: “We’ve had a big change, and in 2019 we took a big gamble and made an in-house short called Coffee Run. It was both expensive and really time consuming. If you condensed it down, I think it took about three months of in-house work. It was a huge gamble."

“Off the back of that, and learning so much from it, we then pitched on a Tyler Childers music video and won that, just because we’d been able to show the work that we’d done in Coffee Run. And then, within six to 12 months, we were doing a Foo Fighters music video. There’s this huge, crazy arc there. All that in-house stuff paid dividends, but at the time we were thinking, ‘This is really risky.’”

Speaking about what makes Bomper’s work so dynamic and distinctive, Mark Procter enters the conversation. “I’ve been here for the past three years now,” he says. “We’re constantly doing a lot of in-house testing and projects with lots of different styles and methods. A lot of it’s just to try and find new tech and new ways of thinking. It’s that attitude of following passions and creativity and not being collared in, and saying, ‘I’ve got this crazy, wild idea’ and seeing how far you can take it. With all of our shorter, in-house projects we’re always pushing that; we’re taking little risks and experimenting.”

Of the studio’s mindset in relation to workflow, Mark says: “The current workflow changes quite a bit. We’re constantly experimenting with different workflows and everyone at the studio has different strengths in working with programmes that they really enjoy. We might get a call where the project is ideal to work with in Cinema 4D, or it’s ideal to test out some of Blender’s more procedural workflows or quick look-devving. Or it’s really more animation focused and so we really need to use Maya for the character animation."

“We’re constantly trying to adapt and not be controlled by the pipeline. We’re using Unreal a lot more now, too. Obviously having a really well-refined pipeline means you can knock more work out, as long as you have like a series, or continuous work."

“At the moment we’re working on a good-cause project, and we wanted to push the characters to be a little more stop-motion, to look like they’re hand-crafted. It’s a style that we really like. It’s similar to what we’ve done before, and we’re trying to improve on the Childers video testing new styles and experimenting.”

Emlyn explains of the studio’s track record: “We do have a really varied portfolio. Sometimes we’ll work with a producer or a design studio or ad agency, or sometimes we work directly with a brand, like Levi’s. It massively depends where it comes from, what clients have in-house, and how far down the line they’ve got. Sometimes they’ll come to us and they’ve got a basic idea that we can develop. On other projects, we’ll work with design agencies who want us to match to their vision, so it has to be spot on. It varies massively."

"A lot of the time we’re there because clients come to us and say, ‘This is the rough idea. Can you pitch us an idea?’ We’ve had all kinds of crazy pitches. With animation, we’re in the driving seat and doing the direction. We always try new things and styles.”

A key facet of Bomper’s creative culture has been the recent launch of the in-house Bomper Academy. Mark explains its impulse as being rooted in keeping staff up to date on new working processes or embedded in a given project. “For the past year or two we’ve been developing an in-house project called Bomper Academy,” he says. “That’s where anyone who has an idea, or something they want to learn or develop in, has a space to take a little time away from live work. They can either develop a new project around their idea, or a new concept, a new style of rigging for example, and we can experiment with it. We might be able to make it a 30-second quick reel of a character."

“Or, if someone wants to have a try at directing something on a shorter piece that doesn’t have the stress of live work, it’s a safer space for them to stress-test a new technique. Bomper Academy really helps with productions, because they might find something that immediately impacts on a live project.”

Emlyn also adds of the Bomper Academy: “Bianca Iancu has created a small short. We put out a call to anyone saying, ‘Come to us with an idea’. For Bianca’s Laundry Day short, the brief was, ‘Okay, come up with an idea that needs to use Blender and needs to use Unreal.’ That’s what was stipulated. You come up with the story and we’ll make a short from it. That gets the team all geared up towards using that pipeline. Blender and Unreal were new to us. Bianca was then able to do the directing, too."

“Then we’ve had a recent one with one of our animators, Allie Holmes. She’s learning Houdini and pitched an idea to me about the Trans Day of Remembrance, and it was really cool.”

Emlyn makes the point that a project can generate all sorts of learning outcomes for the staff. “At the end of it, we want to make sure everyone’s learned something new and an output to share,” he says. “It’s an end goal of working like an end client, but with fewer restrictions in place.”

Our conversation then shifts to a much bigger picture discussion centred around the current state of animation in Wales. There’s a sense of excitement in Emlyn’s thoughts about the industry, and he begins by noting of the scene: “It’s starting to bubble at the minute. It’s probably been a good 10 or 20 years where there hasn’t been much coming out of Wales."

“But there’s a new generation coming in and Creative Wales has changed their focus. Over the past few years they’ve been involved in putting money into live action for huge productions. I think Creative Wales now realise that animation is one of the new focuses, and said they want to push the support for animated IP. Having IP that are originated and owned in Wales, that’s where the showcase and
the longevity is.”

Bomper’s IP development slate includes a feature film and TV series projects. Emlyn rounds out his thoughts on the current Welsh animation sector by stressing the potential for its creatives to tell the stories that are authentically Welsh. “Be authentic,” he asserts. “This is why we got our first IP into development.”

Alongside Bomper’s creative ventures, Emlyn has other goals in mind to spur development in the country’s animation industry. “We’re looking into setting up an animation association for Wales. Several studios have got together, and we’ve talked about what we want, and what our manifesto would be. We’re part of Animation UK and they’re great because they lobby national government. But we’re also quite lucky here as we have Creative Wales. It would be good if we could come together and build an infrastructure, and to get more producers into Wales.”

For all the bigger picture, animation industry work Emlyn is involved with, he brings the interview back to the spark for it all. “Everybody loves the creative bit,” he says. “We all want to make stuff; we’re all passionate about making CG. Animation and art runs through us all.”

Find out more about Bomper Studio and its work here.

This interview originally appeared in 3D World magazine, the world's leading digital art, CG and VFX magazine. 3D World is on sale in the UK, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and more. Limited numbers of 3D World print editions are available for delivery from our online store (the shipping costs are included in all prices).