House of Cool

The House of Cool is a small animation studio located in the outskirts of Ontario, Canada. For the last couple of months, its staff have been offering glimpses of the workings of their little venture in The House of Cool blog. This is their mission statement:

When I was in college I had an idea of creating an animation studio. I was going to take the animation world by storm and make edgy one hundred million dollar films for young adults like myself. I thought that the early Disney films were the pinnacle of animation but anime was the future. I thought that Don Bluth was an artistic genius because of The Secret of Nimh and Space Ace but he was a hack because of everything else. I thought that if you make a great film the people will come.

This is what I know now.

No movie studio is going to give anyone one hundred million dollars unless they can be guaranteed to make two hundred million in return. In the current market there aren't enough young adults who will go to an animated feature to cover a one hundred million dollar budget. Styles for animation will always change and evolve but the emotions that people feel when they see movies always stay the same. Don Bluth my not have needed to be a genius because of the talent that surrounded him. Don Bluth may not have been a hack because of the forces that may have been working against his films. After my experience on The Iron Giant I now know that if you make a great film they will not necessarily come. But we are still going to take the animation world by storm.

I have been following their work for a while and I am truly impressed with their style. Here are a few examples:






Link.