That Day Don Bluth & Gary Goldman Visited Powerhouse

On Friday, Powerhouse Animation had a pretty fantastic and surreal experience. Don Bluth & Gary Goldman, the revolutionary Director/Producer team of yours/mine/everyone's favorite childhood animated films came to visit us at the studio.

The Alamo Drafthouse, in conjunction with the good folks at Toy Joy, brought Mr. Bluth & Mr. Goldman to Austin for several screening events this past weekend including The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, The Secret of NIMH, and An American Tail. While they were here, Powerhouse Co-Founder Bruce Tinnin, who worked for Don Bluth at Fox Animation Studios, was able to coordinate a studio tour, and it was pretty much the greatest.

These talented filmmaking geniuses awed us with their generosity--signing numerous items for the staff and helping to orchestrate several full studio photos. Check out the write-up from the Alamo Drafthouse blog below, and because it had more impact on me than probably anything else from my childhood, the trailer for An American Tail. FIEVEL MOUSEKEWITZ, YOU GUYS! 

http://drafthouse.com/blog/entry/don-bluth-is-coming-to-the-alamo

Wale (feat. French Montana), 'Back 2 Ballin' Video

Earlier this year, Powerhouse got the amazing opportunity to work with some of the folks from Funny or Die on creating an animation/live action hybrid music video for DC-based rapper Wale. We worked closely with the fantastic Director Brothers who are well known for YouTube phenomenon The Gorburger Show, as well as ads for Old Milwaukee and Jeff Gordon’s Harlem Shake for Pepsi Max.

The video, sponsored by the team at Skullcandy, features throwback animation inspired by some of Wale’s favorite old 8-bit games, with segments based on Streets of Rage, Outrun, Altered Beast, and NBA Jam, amongst a few others. ‘Back 2 Ballin’ which features French Montana, is the lead single off of Wale’s 2012 mixtape ‘Folarin.’ His 3^rd studio album, “The Gifted,” just released on June 24, 2013.

Check out the official release announcement on Skullcandy's blog: http://www.skullcandy.com/blog/2013/07/08/wale-goes-digital-in-funny-or-dies-latest-video.Music1

As well as this great review from Hip Hop Wired: http://hiphopwired.com/2013/07/09/wale-ft-french-montana-back-2-ballin-video/

A Webby, a CLIO, and the Continuation of Humanity...

The Powerhouse team was informed today that the delightfully absurd Dikembe Mutombo Old Spice project we worked on last fall won some very prestigious advertising awards!

First of all, a HUGE congratulations to the entire team at Wieden + Kennedy Portland, Driftlab, and Adam Atomic for their work conceptualizing, writing, and developing this game. We had a blast working with every single person on the team.

WEBBY AWARDS:

Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World won BOTH the Webby AND the People's Voice Award in the Game or Application Category as well as the Promotions and Contests Category. A very rare and impressive feat if we do say so ourselves...

CLIO Awards:

It ALSO won the Gold Prize in the Digital/Mobile category for a CLIO Award! Check out this great summary video they posted about the entire campaign, featuring some of our cinematic animation.

Mrs Brown's Boys Premiere in Manchester

About 6 months ago, we announced that we were excited to be starting work on a pilot for Universal & The BBC. Well, after months of hard work, we've wrapped production on the pilot episode for the animated version of Mrs. Brown's Boys!

Last week, Powerhouse co-founders Bruce Tinnin and Frank Gabriel traveled to Manchester to attend the official premiere of our pilot. They had a great time, and even got to meet the cast of the live show, including writer/creator and Mrs. Brown him/herself, Brendan O'Carroll. Check out some photos from their trip below!

What is Powerhouse Creative?

If you follow this blog then you have probably already noticed that the good folks here at Powerhouse Animation recently launched a sister site called Powerhouse Creative. If this is news to you, then please take this time to head over there and check it out. I'll wait.

Now that we're all on the same page, Powerhouse Creative just finished our second promotional piece designed at explaining what we do while also subtly inundating viewers with embedded subliminal messages. If we've done our job, the calls should start flooding in at any minute. Check out the video below and share it with your friends and neighbors and relatives and whatnot. We really appreciate it.