Production Design and Art Direction

AT&T “Train

In late March of 2019 we wrapped animation production at HouseSpecial on AT&T’s “Train” with BBDO, the latest in their movie genre mashup campaign. The spot was directed by Dougal Wilson for Furlined, while I served as animation director and production designer for the animated portion.

Working with Dougal was an unqualified pleasure and the team at HouseSpecial was amazing, It was something of a homecoming for me as it had been nearly a decade since I’d last worked with many of these exemplary talents and old friends like producer, Rebecca Bowen; DP, John Nolan and 2nd DP; Clay Connally. I was thrilled to be able to work once more with character designers, Felicie Haymoz who designed all of our human characters on Isle Of Dogs and Stephen Bodin who I worked with back in my days at Bent Image Lab. David K. Manuel was our concept illustrator. The set team was led by Associate Art Director, Andy Berry leading a crew that included Bryan McIntyre, Chris Canaglia, Jake Hauswirth, Javid Howell, Zach Sheehan, Gee Staughton and Alan Long. The puppet team, led by Katie Mello included Puppet Sculptor, Toby Froud; Armaturist and Rigger, Shami Lang-Rinderspacher; Hair and Costume Supervisor, Margaret Meyer; Costumers, Sara Neiman and Elodie Masa; Puppet Fabricators, Daniel Miller, Teresa Huarte, Mattie Bowden and Bryan McIntyre, and Puppet Painters; Polly Robbins and Laurie Olson. Casey Follen was the production coordinator and kept us all very much on track.

The beautiful animation was courtesy of Amy Adamy, Chris Ohlgren and Suzanne Twining.