The Character Shop

The studio, based in Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter, has produced characters, from talking tigers and amiable androids to Biblical prophets and personable pawn brokers, for clients across Europe, North American and the Middle East.

It has built its reputation on a track record of working with major producers including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Discovery, Universal, Platinum Films and Disney.

Commercial director Andy Guest says: “Our speciality is handling character animation work, for both corporate and broadcast clients, particularly short pieces of two minutes or less. The UK is particularly good at doing short, high quality and highly creative forms of animation.”

The CharacterShop began as “the sub-division of a sub-division” of the BBC, before being spun out as a private company nine years ago, where it has prospered, now employing up to 30 people at a time. Its work includes Friends & Heroes, a series of Biblical stories made for the BBC’s children’s channel CBBC; special effects sequences for TV Dramas including Emmerdale, the Royal and Shameless; a robot ident for the Saudi children’s network STV Generations; and an anarchic android used to launch a Swedish television channel.

Andy Guest adds: “The company is developing quickly. While we’re keen to continue our associations with major broadcast producers – our roots after all were with the BBC in Birmingham - we’re finding that an increasing amount of work is coming from corporate clients who need specific characters for their marketing.

“So, for example, we’ve taken Ranger Rick, a character that’s been around and loved in the US since the 1930s, and turned him into a 3D strip cartoon for America’s National Wildlife Federation. Similarly we’ve created Zoo Troop, a series of animated animal characters for Haven Holidays, the UK holidays company.”

For more information on The Character Shop, visit www.thecharactershop.co.uk