International animation production company Passion Pictures has signed Canada-based creative studio Giant Ant to its roster of talent for representation in the U.S. Giant Ant is a collaborative creative studio working within the fields of animation and documentary.
Giant Ant is a collective of writers, animators and directors with a body of material across various strands and styles of animation. Aside from applying their creative skills to the collective’s own independent animated projects and features, they are growing their portfolio of storytelling commercial work across a range of industries. Some of these stories have come from clients like Costa Del Mar, Toms, 84000, and Slack. For the latter, a messaging app facilitating teamwork, Giant Ant created “Amazing Spaceship,” a whimsical retro-animation spot showing how different factions can come together, in this case for outer space exploration.
Passion’s EP Ryan Goodwin-Smith observed, “Giant Ant filled a gap on Passion’s roster, while being in keeping with the kind of style the company champions. It soon became clear we shared many common ambitions with our work, not least to connect with people through commercials, film and TV for a global audience.”
Jay Grandin, Giant Ant partner and creative director, commented that ‘we’re very excited to join such an amazing group of artists at Passion, and to take our commercial work in the U.S. to the next level.”
The Giant Ant studio is based in Vancouver, B.C. Passion maintains studios in London, Paris, New York and Melbourne.
Lawsuit Alleges That TikTok Was Aware Of Risks Its Platform Posed To Kids and Teens
TikTok was aware that its design features are detrimental to its young users and that publicly touted tools aimed at limiting kids' time on the site were largely ineffective, according to internal documents and communications exposed in a lawsuit filed by the state of Kentucky.
The details are among redacted portions of Kentucky's lawsuit that contains the internal communications and documents unearthed during a more than two year investigation into the company by various states across the country.
Kentucky's lawsuit was filed this week, alongside separate complaints brought forth by attorneys general in a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia. TikTok is also facing another lawsuit from the Department of Justice and is itself suing the Justice Department over a federal law that could ban it in the U.S. by mid-January.
The redacted information — which was inadvertently revealed by Kentucky's attorney general's office and first reported by Kentucky Public Radio — touches on a range of topics, most importantly the extent to which TikTok knew how much time young users were spending on the platform and how sincere it was when rolling out tools aimed at curbing excessive use.
Beyond TikTok use among minors, the complaint alleges the short-form video sharing app has prioritized "beautiful people" on its platform and has noted internally that some of the content-moderation metrics it has publicized are "largely misleading."
The unredacted complaint, which was seen by The Associated Press, was sealed by a Kentucky state judge on Wednesday after state officials filed an emergency motion to seal it.
When reached for comment, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said: "It is highly irresponsible of the Associated Press to... Read More