After months of renovations and a lifetime fine tuning our cutting and colouring skills, we’re super proud to officially launch Crayon – a boutique finishing studio tucked away on the ground floor of our Moray Street headquarters. Three suites fitted for editorial, grading and finishing and a cosy little kitchen for beers and brews, the gorgeous space was designed by XYZ’s creative director and founder Tim Kentley and we’re incredibly excited to welcome Crayon to our growing XYZ family.

We’ll let the work speak for itself.

It was only a month ago we invited the very talented (and can now report lovely) Mat Landour to join the XYZ roster and already he’s wrapped his first job with us! A super cute spot, we find ourselves in an inverted world based on an Australian phenomenon where families place customised stick figures on the back of their cars… well, lets not give too much away – better you just watch it here!

Late last year Honda via Andrew Woods & Associates Los Angeles approached XYZ to direct a global environmental campaign ‘Blue Skies‘. They were so thrilled with the spot they came back to create a new story – this time focusing on how Honda has been creating environmentally conscious cars not just since it was cool, but for generations. Watch and enjoy.

XYZ’s core is storytelling followed closely by original character design, so you can imagine how deeply pleased we are to have the very talented Mat Landour (formerly FX&Mat) join the roster in 2012. His commercial work includes standout spots for Coca Cola Superbowl, Royal Bank of Canada, TNT and The International Olympic Committee working with gun agencies such as W+K Portland, Y&R NY, Sapient and Cole&Webber.

Mat studied at Supinfocom France where he directed his first animated short film ‘En Tus Brazos’. This tango love story won awards the world over including an ‘Excellence Award’ at Siggraph 2007 and was screened during the World Tango Championship in Buenos Aires. Mat, a recipient of awards from Clio, Young Guns and Shoot, likes to play with all media, often mixing them to create breathtakingly poetic environments. Just signed he is already in production on his first job with Kia via Inocean Sydney.

View Mat’s reel here.

Locked away for months with a full scale set in his studio, XYZ animation director Darcy Prendergast can finally unveil his latest music video for Gotye’s ‘Easy Way Out’.

Shot on mo-co and animated almost entirely in camera, the music video is a mesmerising spiral through disarray and here at XYZ HQ, we can’t get enough.

XYZ Studios is super chuffed to appoint Katie Mackin as Executive Producer. She was most recently Senior Producer at Passion Pictures London and previously worked at The Moving Picture Company London. Mackin has produced campaigns for clients such as Audi, Adidas, Burberry and Coca Cola and worked with agencies including Wieden+Kennedy London, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners San Francisco, BBDO New York, BBH London and Mother London. Says XYZ founder Tim Kentley “Mackin is a perfect fit for us, a Melbourne girl with serious northern hemisphere exposure, she is the right mix to lead XYZ as a bi-global studio, with offices in Melbourne and New York. The entire team welcomes her to the mad house that is, XYZ.”

The 2012 Sustainable Living Festival kicks off in Melbourne tomorrow and for the 8th year running we’re super proud to once again lend our skills to this wonderful cause.

This year Bobby Dazzler worked again with festival director Luke Taylor to design an irreverent Australian coat of arms featuring a Ray Ban wearing kangaroo and bike riding emu. All wrapped up into one cute TVC ‘The Lucky Country’. Check it out!

If you were up late watching Djokovic take out Nadal in the Australian Open you’ll be familiar with this campaign. Shot on location during a wonderfully windy, rainy and overcast Tasmanian summer, XYZ Director Tim Kentley working alongside BWM Melbourne battled the elements to bring sunshine to Birds Eye ‘Field Fresh’ Australian Grown peas.

XYZ Senior Art Director Auver Cedric Austria whipped up a gang of cheeky characters while our Head of 3D Richard Osellame wrestled with Renderman (our super powered rendering software) to get a few million feathers on each bird. The locations were the actual Birds Eye pea farms and we even cast a real farmer; Stewart McGee!

Swoop on over to our main site to check it out.

Very chuffed to announce that our busy founder and director Tim Kentley has launched Wheelbarrow, alongside music publisher Matt Tanner, illustrator and author Nick Bland and producer Adrian Shapiro. The new company will specialise in creating content for portable media platforms, such as Apple iPad, iPhone and Android products.

Wheelbarrow’s launch title is the conversion of Bland’s award winning and best selling children’s book, ‘The Very Cranky Bear’ into an interactive eBook. The eBook is directed by XYZ’s Eran Hilelli, read by actor Angus Sampson, with an original score by Helen Croome and is now available on the App Store.

Welcome to the XYZ family Barrowfolk!

“The key thing with our creative process is that the visual execution is derived from a conceptual understanding of the idea inherent in the brief. Which is quite dense, but it basically means that rather than doing something that looks cool for the sake of it, look at what the key product or the key message is and try and drive a visual language that is unique to that. That will lead you into an interesting landscape that will be rewarding. The medium is defined by the message.”

So that was just an excerpt, jump over here to read the whole deal!

XYZ director Eran Hilleli, whose graduation film ‘Between Bears‘ won ‘Best Animation’ at the first inaugural Vimeo Awards in New York has been invited back to judge the 2012 awards.

Eran studied traditional animation as his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jerusalem, Israel and recently directed a spot for Honda Worldwide with a second instalment currently in production.

Get your submissions ready! Entries to the 2012 Vimeo Awards close in February.

Andrew Woods & Associates Los Angeles whispered that Honda were launching a shiny new global symbol to represent their commitment to building a safer world for future generations. The trick they wanted from XYZ? To bring their new symbol to life in a stunning way.
We were all ears.

Enter new blood XYZ director Eran Hilleli who married his signature minimalist style with the symbol, diving us into a graphic, one shot world full of progressive Honda products. With music created by our good friends at Nylon Sydney, ‘Blue Skies for Our Children’ is launching from Honda’s website and at car shows around the world.