press release: Atomic Cartoons Broadens Creative Focus Under New Creative Director, Luke Carroll

(Vancouver, BC) – Atomic Cartoons is revving up investment in generating creative content, with a mandate to develop more original properties and diversify offerings in response to the evolution of the animation and broadcasting industries.
To support this new initiative Atomic – known for its service work on series such as Rocket Monkeys, as well as original properties including Pirate Express – has hired a new creative director, set up an internal pitch workshop series, established an in-house incubation studio and is actively hunting for original properties with potential partners in the publishing, art and gaming worlds.
“We want to stimulate and support creativity in-house, and simultaneously reach out to potential external partners in non-traditional areas, in order to significantly diversify our development slate,” says Rob Davies, partner, Atomic Cartoons. “This new effort is specifically designed to generate hybrid offerings – incorporating animation as well as live action, graphic, 2D and 3D technologies – with a mission to open up new broadcasting homes as the animation landscape continues to rapidly change.”
Atomic’s new creative director, Luke Carroll, formerly the producer of the animated feature Escape from Planet Earth, brings an MFA from UBC in Producing and Creative Writing to the position, as well as extensive experience in the live action and motion capture industries through directing episodic television, DVD series and award winning short films.
In an effort to mine the in-house creative that already exists, Atomic has set up a series of development workshops for interested crew to refine their own original creative ideas into an introductory pitch to Atomic management and possible option agreement.
Atomic is also investing in setting up the “world’s smallest studio”, a mini internal studio with a green screen and lighting that offers space for creative play to support and cultivate the development of hybrid properties.
“This is an exciting time for us at Atomic and we want to stay flexible so we can respond to industry changes,” continues Rob Davies. “We’re in production on a number of animation series at the moment, including Pirate Express, and we also see strong potential in broadening our focus to hybrids. Our history and passion is in animation and these new properties will complement our pure animation work in production and development. We’ll keep one foot in animation and utilize additional technologies to produce unique original properties.”