London, UK — Amazing Spectacles, the Animation Production Company that operates within the Prime Focus Group has announced the signing of animation directors Gary Cureton and Andrew Painter. They will join up with existing directors Martyn Pick, Eoin Clarke, Susi Wilkinson, Richard Bazley and Nandita Jain, and mark the next stage of the company’s development as it strengthens its client offering.

Gary Cureton began his career at Aardman Animation writing and directing episodes of Morph as well as animating Wallace & Gromit and numerous commercials. He subsequently made the transition from traditional stop-motion to CG at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop where he worked as an animation director on various projects. After a spell working for MTV in New York, Gary returned to London where he continues to work in both stop-motion and CG, specialising in the making of TV commercials.

Andrew Painter started our as a trainee animator at Walt Disney Animation, working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He has since been an animator/director/character designer for major London-based commercial studios including Passion Pictures and Hibbert Ralph, where he has spent the past 10 years, progressing to become their main director/character designer. Much of Andrew’s work today is illustration, character design and storyboarding. He recently collaborated with Amazing Spectacles, developing the characters on the Gocompare.com Big Bad Wolf spot which fused 2D hand drawn animation with digital post techniques.

Discussing the announcement, Jules Pye, Executive Producer at Amazing Spectacles said, “To bring in Andrew and Gary is a really positive move for us. Their unique talents perfectly complement those of our other directors and will allow us to add new specialism’s to our roster. They are both so talented and I can’t wait to work alongside them.”

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