Bermuda Shorts is a UK animation firm that lists itself as the first animation company to represent individual animation directors in the commercial animation arena.

Their site is organized that way. In addition to showcasing new work, the reels are organized by director and designer. You can also browse them organized by type: commercials, broadcast, promos and short films.

Most of the animations are for broadcast commercial applications, with clients like Volkswagen, American Express, MTV, Nikelodeon, Kraft, Coke, Nestle and the BBC.

There are also a fair number of experimental animated shorts and fun self-promotional pieces, but most of the commercial work is just as fun.

There is a broad variety of approaches between the directors, and all of them seem to be very imaginative and demonstrate the ability to communicate and entertain in short bursts, often 15 or 30 seconds.

The animations are done in a variety of animation media, 2-D cell, Flash, 3-D CGI, stop-motion, photo-montage and altered live action.

Images at left: History of Animation Nicktoons short by Filipe Alcada, Save the Children spot by Ian Bird, Nite Nite Volkswagen ad by Will Barras and Paper Dinosaurs Nickelodeon spot by Model Robot.

Gate: bi-monthly animation contest

Bermuda Shorts is sponsoring a bi-monthly competition called Gate for animation freelancers who want to break into directing, designers looking to move into animation and animation school grads who want to break into the biz.

If you’re chosen, they will feature you on the site as a guest director, bring you into the studio (assuming you’re in reach of London, UK, or can travel there) and promote your work for two months. If you get a positive enough response from the industry they’ll back you with a production team and give you studio space to produce your first job. Details here.

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