As the animation studio Panic marks their tenth anniversary, they have brought home seven Collision Awards — the Berthold Gone Wild clip, which reveals the animation process, won three gold and four silver awards at one of the industry’s most important competitions. In Panic’s anniversary clip, grumpy Berthold looks back at the studio’s ten years of work.
The animation studio Panic was founded in 2014 by the company’s art director Gints Gūtmanis, who believed that the creative potential of Latvian illustrators, animators, and 3D specialists could be combined in a world-class studio. Rita Šteimane, the company’s CEO, points out that the studio started from scratch — with no clients, international contacts, or experience in the industry. However, the ambition and skills of the Panic team have enabled the studio to conquer the global market. In ten years, Panic has completed projects in more than 30 countries, working with clients such as Netflix, Google, Spotify, Uber, Indeed, and others.
The success of the studio is rooted in the team’s ability to find the right animation style for each brand and story. For example, Panic used colourful, stylised 2D characters to create a workplace safety short film for employees of the Netflix streaming platform, while for the Smart & Small campaign for the US job-seeker platform Indeed, the studio created 3D characters resembling puppets. To sum up the highlights of the decade, Panic has created a new reel in which the company’s mascot, the grumpy perfectionist Bertold, looks back on the studio’s most memorable work.
Berthold made his debut last year when Panic turned a practical need into a creative project by making a video about the project process. The company’s skills and the different aspects of animation were revealed in the clip, following Berthold’s adventures. The clip has won the London International Award and seven awards at the prestigious Collision Awards. It was also shortlisted as a finalist in competitions such as The One Show, Clio Awards, Ciclope, and The Shots. We’ve written more about Berthold Gone Wild previously.
«From day one, Panic has been built with the ambition to become one of the world’s best and well-known animation studios in the field of advertising. International awards are one way to see where we stand on the global stage and how our work is viewed by other award-winning creative directors, art directors, directors, and producers,» says Rita. «It’s an incredible honour to see our project appear on the shortlist alongside Apple commercials, as it did in the Ciclope competition, and to be among the best alongside animation studios that we admire ourselves. In the Collision Awards, our work was judged alongside projects from Disney, Pixar, and Dreamwork. Moments like this allow us to see for ourselves that what we are doing is world-class, and it gives us an extra push to keep building Panic’s profile so that we are known as widely as Pixar or Buck. Coming from Latvia, we have to invest more in being at the “right” parties and events, to casually bump into people in the field we wouldn’t have met otherwise, and build lasting personal relationships that way. Advertising festivals have given us the opportunity to get out there.»
More about Panic’s projects on the studio’s website.
Viedokļi