Sun and Moon Studios

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to visit Sun and Moon in Bristol. They are a small animation company with a wide variety of skills and clients ranging from TV animation to app development, handeling work in house from initial development right through to the finished article. The team is a small but effective one hiring in talent when there are big projects on and keeping only a few full time staff for day to day work. While I was their they were working on several projects at once and said now after being established several years they are finally able to produce their own intellectual property in their spare time such as their short animation Aunt Fanny. I really enjoyed this short and I love the simplistic and stylised design of Aunt Fanny with her cylindrical body and long bendy arms, something I definitely struggle to do in my own work.

Dylan and Louis, the two co-founders of the studio, were very welcoming and spoke openly about their time in the animation industry and what it was like to own their own company. Before founding Sun and Moon both had worked in the industry for other companies. They said one of the major benefits of owning their own company was they now can chose how long they work, what they work on (especially now they are more established) and if they get a large project in they can hire in help just for that project. In many animation jobs when deadlines are approaching you are expected to work longer hours to get the job done. Both Louis and Dylan expressed a great interest in keeping overtime to a minimum, which I thought was a great work ethic as it lets you keep your social life while earning a living doing something that you love.

They also mentioned that at first it was harder to get work and sometimes they had to take what ever work was available, but now if they really don’t want to work on a project they don’t have to as they have a lot of work coming in due to the reputation they have built up. The whole team was really welcoming and friendly, happy to answer any questions I had on the software they were using or the general company. Speaking to the team first hand was a great opportunity for me to see what it was like to work there and as a student about to graduate a great learning experience of what level of work is expected in the industry. I would recommend them to anyone and if you want to learn more about Sun and Moon check out their website at http://sunandmoonstudios.co.uk and I want to say a massive thank you to Sun and Moon for letting me and a few of my class mates come and visit!