February 5 - News
Artists at Work: Mute
Our studio is up in sunny Yorkshire. After moving out of London last year, we haven’t really looked back. Having the countryside on our doorstep has really been an inspiration as it makes it much easier to switch off from work for a moment if we need to come back at something from a different perspective. On a personal note, other than getting married last year (probably deserves a fairly big mention), getting a dog was the biggest event in our lives. He’s quite the character and he forces us to get up and stretch our legs more than we ever used to. He always seems to know when we’re working a bit too hard as well, so he’ll find a way to distract us…(case in point – photo attached).
After years of experience working in-house at other studios, we’ve really taken what we learnt and honed our animation production process. We’re really happy with our work and the way we work. We’re small enough to be super responsive to clients, but can also balloon up to handle the biggest of projects. This has led to us working with some wonderful animators, illustrators and sound designers over the last year. Our work has taken on a more illustrative and audio-led approach because of this, which really shows when watching our projects.
Tell us your top books, possessions or images in your studio that give you inspiration?
I was in the Midlands’ finest undiscovered pop-rock band* for several years and my musical streak hasn’t ever left me. Having the ability to pick up my bass or guitar at any moment provides some real thinking space when coming up with creative concepts for projects. Up on the walls, we have some lovely prints recently purchased from Tom Clohosy Cole, along with a few stills from our own projects. I think it’s pretty important to be reminded of the projects that, for one reason or another, were really challenging but ultimately turned out really successful. It certainly helps to take a glance at them when we’re getting close to an impending deadline. *not necessarily the truth and very much subject to bias.
What’s your inspirations right now and for 2019?
It sounds pretty clichéd, but considering how much life threw at us last year and how we were able to manage it all, I’m pretty inspired by our capacity to do great work. I’m really hoping we can continue this trend in 2019 and create some awesome projects for our lovely clients.
What are you looking forward to in 2019?
Moving. We wife and I are currently in the misty valley (not sure if we’re in a peak or trough as of this moment…) of trying to buy a house. Once that’s done and dusted, we’ll have a real base to push MUTE forward and to focus more on new and exciting projects.
Any exciting projects / collaborations coming up in 2019?
We actually just finished up an exciting collaboration in January. The finished animation is called Fleuves and it was a continuation of a small collaboration made last year. Written by Aurélia Coulaty, Fleuves follows the story of 16 legendary rivers, travelling from their sources to their mouths. Illustrated by the amazing Matteo Berton, MUTE animation studio brought a selection of the rivers to life to promote the book. Zing Audio created perfect soundscapes for each, and tied everything together with a beautiful musical score. The book Fleuves was published by Éditions Amaterra in 2106. It was a collaboration squeezed in and around client work, so we’re super happy with the final piece. Hopefully MUTE can do more projects like this in 2019.
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