Longtime creative partners Elliot Lim and Aaron Kemnitzer have teamed to launch Bullpen, a design and animation studio with bases of operation in Brooklyn, NY, and the Northern California community of Menlo Park.
Lim and Kemnitzer open their new venture with over 25 years of combined experience in the motion design industry. After first meeting at design shop Digital Kitchen, the two became fast friends, collaborating off and on ever since. In that time, they have worked with postproduction and animation studios including Buck, Psyop, Gentlemen Scholar, Hornet, and Not to Scale leading to a string of creative successes, most notably a Lim-created animated homage inspired by HBO’s seminal series The Wire.
Lim and Kemnitzer are a directorial duo. The former had most recently been on the roster of Not to Scale while Kemnitzer had been freelancing in Chicago and New York for the past 10-plus years.
With Bullpen, Lim and Kemnitzer are looking to create a new kind of studio defined by its leaner model and hands-on approach–flexible, agile and adaptable to clients’ shifting needs. “Working in the industry, we have learned a lot about the dos and don’ts of servicing projects and clients. That’s why for everything we take on, the client is always assured that both principals of the company, Elliot and I, are fully dedicated to the project,” explained Kemnitzer. “This is unlike other studios where you might be passed to freelancers or less experienced creatives within the company. Also, our lower overhead allows us to be competitive while still remaining nimble enough to expand for bigger projects.”
This approach has already attracted such clients as HP, Amazon and Charles Schwab.
To showcase its creative range, Bullpen is releasing several new projects and animations created especially for its launch. Consisting of a mix of illustrative 2D and 3D short films–from an overweight bumble bee to a factory that produces the alphabet–each piece purposefully plays with different looks, tones and rhythms to show the breadth and impact of well-crafted design.
These shorts all culminate in a text-driven animated video in celebration of the concept of “style,” using a host of techniques to demonstrate how distinct visual elements play a vital role in conveying emotion, shifting expectations and telling a story. According to Lim, this film perfectly encapsulates Bullpen’s abilities and sensibilities. “We’re capable of a lot of different styles. We’re flexible. When you look at these brand films, you can see that diversity of techniques and our love for using style to tell a good story.”
