HOT HOUSE: Wit Animation

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.

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.

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."

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."