Ian left Rushes to join a group of liked-minded creative people to found the world’s first fully digital facility, The Mill, where he was named Creative and Technical Director.
Ian and The Mill parted company when he decided to devote his attention to the development of his pet project, ReBoot. During this time, Ian was animation director on the award-winning innovative music video Let’s Get Rocked for Def Leppard. Much of the technology Ian used in this acclaimed video served as tests of applications that he would later perfect and use in the successful production of ReBoot.
Gavin Blair, Co-creator and Supervising Animator of ReBoot, attended De Montford University in Leicestershire where he graduated with honours earning a BA in Graphic Design, specializing in animation, television design and computer assisted design. While at college, he was short listed in the Royal Society of Arts TV Graphics Design Bursary.
In May 1985, Gavin joined Rushes Post-Production as a runner and within two months he was promoted into their Computer Graphics Department and was trained to operate the Quantel Paintbox and the BTS Elite Computer Animation System. He worked as an assistant computer model maker for 18 months before becoming a full operator! animator, working on more than 200 commercials. During this period, Gavin won a Creative Circle Award for a successful Honeywell/Bus commercial.
Gavin moved into the Mill in January 1990, where he continued to work as an operator/animator. He worked on the BTS Elite Computer Animation System, the Alias Computer Animation System and the SD Solutions T-Morph morphing package. As an operator/animator, Gavin executed animation sequences for over 150 large scale commercials, and won many respected industry awards.
Phil Mitchell, Co-creator and Supervising Animator of ReBoot, attended De Montford University in Leicestershire where he graduated with honours with a BA. in Graphics, specializing in animation, television design and file and computer assisted design.
After graduating, Phil worked as a special effects director and animator/special effects co-ordinator on commercials and title sequence design, while also storyboarding commercials.
In 1985, Phil joined Electronic Arts in London as a computer animator and worked on all in-house character animation projects with conventional animators. Among his many projects was the Smarties commercial Wembley Stadium, which went on to win the Golden Arrow at the British Advertising Awards in 1986.
Phil moved on to Array Productions in London in 1987 as a computer animator, Phil’s award-winning projects included the widely respected commercial for Smarties, Classroom (winner CG On-line Best Commercial, London 1989) and the ground breaking commercial for Nintendo Super Mario 3 (winner, CG On-line Best Commercial, London 1990). In March 1990, Phil was voted Best Computer Artist in Direction Magazine in London.
Phil was then taken on board by The Mill in London as a senior animator in 1991 where he was responsible for introducing the company to 2D morphing, making them the first post-production facility in London to have the technology at the time.
In January 1995, Alliance Communications Corporation announced that ReBoot, had been renewed for a second season by the ABC Network in the United States and YTV in Canada. Both networks have placed orders for a minimum of 10 additional episodes of ReBoot.
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Printed in Animator Issue 33 (Summer 1995)