HOT HOUSE: Wit Animation

What a Cast of Characters

By Linda Romanello

April 1, 2006    Source: Studio Monthly

Though it may sound like an insult calling a talented team of artists "characters," this particular team happens to specialize in the creation of 3D character animation.

What's Their Gig?

Headed up by Jeb Milne, founder/creative director/animation director, the Venice, CA-based Wit Animation studio (more like a boutique in its size and feel) has created a number of familiar faces, including one memorable TV spot for the McDonald’s food chain that featured four African-American women enjoying one of the restaurant’s new salads. The spot blended live-action with 3D animation and was so successful, says Milne, that Wit has been asked to produce a follow-up piece (see Milne’s tutorial at studiomonthly.com/5213.html).

Wit was also recently hired to produce a TV spot for Post’s Fruity Pebbles cereal featuring the famous Flintstones characters where, for the first time, the company will be blending 2D with its signature 3D style.

The Cool Factor

Milne’s first job as an independent director/producer was in 1998, when he was asked to create a number of animated spots for the MTV Movie Awards. "It was a really lucky break I got from a friend of a friend," he says. "It was the first professional job I ever did, and what that did for me and for Wit was it enabled me to call up people and they would listen to me. That was huge. Once you’ve done something like that, it opens doors."

Rather than taking the more traveled path of working for several studios and then branching out on his own, Milne started his own company right from the start. There was a brief stint with an animation studio but Milne explains, "I was doing 3D environments and got bored very quickly. I knew I really wanted to be doing character work. That’s what was exciting to me." Milne quit and taught himself how to do character animation. He created his own reel and started "hawking it around until somebody would hire me. But it’s been difficult. I scratched and clawed my way to where we are now through a really unusual route. It’s not easy to figure out how this business works. If you work for a big company, you see exactly how it works, but that’s not how I did it."

Prior to moving to the states, Milne lived and worked in London for nearly 20 years, following up on a career as a singer/songwriter. Once he got a taste for character animation, he never looked back.

"I know it’s an unusual story, but I’m hoping that somewhere along that journey, it’s given us a different edge or attitude that separates us from everyone else."

The Geek Factor

According to Milne, Wit has become "quite well-known for our hair and fur." The company’s arsenal of animation tools includes Autodesk 3ds Max, Adobe After Effects for compositing and Sonar Cakewalk for audio. The stand-out plug-in, among several, is Shag: Hair from Digimation to add fur and hair to 3D objects in 3ds Max.

The business is currently expanding. Milne started out in a one-room apartment, eventually bought a house with a garage in the back that he renovated into a studio and had employees working in both the studio space and throughout his home. Now, Wit is getting set to move into a larger, commercial 2,400 square-foot space. "What can I say, we’re growing," says Milne. "Things have been fantastic. And it’s not because I’m a business man, I can tell you that. It’s a total creative force."