Client// The Paper Bear Foundation
Delivery// 30 min. animated short
Director Arix Zalace and The Paper Bear Foundation approached us with an ambitious brief with a rare mix of ingredients. First, the structure: a film-within-a-film, a self-contained animated universe embedded within a live-action feature. Next, the purpose: a story that carries a powerful, resonant environmental message. And finally the soul: to create a love letter to the hand-crafted animation that first made us fall in love with the medium.
Producing a piece with this much heart meant solving a very specific problem: how do you protect the soul of hand-crafted animation while using the flexibility of a modern digital pipeline? That question became our playground. We set out to build a workflow where contemporary tools exist solely to serve, support, and sharpen a traditional vision. Navigating that tension between digital efficiency and authenticity felt very much like our kind of challenge. But more on that later.
//Trailer
//Backgrounds
Art direction played a central role in bridging these worlds. We've developed watercolor-inspired backgrounds rooted in real-world locations featured in the live-action portion of the film. These environments needed to feel painterly and expressive, yet grounded enough to create a visual continuity between the animated and live-action worlds.
On the animation side, we leaned into frame-by-frame 2D character animation, enhanced through our custom hybrid 2D–3D pipeline. This approach allowed us to preserve the looseness and spontaneity of traditional animation while introducing the depth and camera movement, often associated with contemporary workflows.
//Stills
//Production & Pipeline
Together, these elements shaped a film that bridges past and present—honoring the craft of traditional animation while using contemporary tools to expand its visual and emotional range.
The film has since been screened internationally, including presentations in Florida, USA, among other locations.
As of mid 2026, it's available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+ in North America.
//The Crew
Executive Producer Stanimir Milev // Creative Director Sava Komitski // Animation Director Alexandra Proynova // Story Consultant Vladislav Lakov // Visual Development & Backgrounds Zackery Adame // Background Layout Mustafa Gundem // Character Design Marta Andreeva, Martina Ivanova // Storyboard Artist Konstantin Vitkov - Titis // Character Layout Marta Andreeva, Ralitsa Aleksieva, Yana Georgieva // Character Animators Atanas Filipov, Michael Robson, Sofia L. Salinas Ivanchenko, Arnas Khabi, Guillaume Blackburn, Alexandra Rajeva // Assistant Animators Isaac Rubio, Richard Matthew D. Baron, Matthew Koh, Jon Acosta, Bernardo Pacheco, Wilfredo Castro // Clean Up & Color María Reyero Serantes, Mirian Inmaculada Aznar Gomariz, Vicente Tarazona, Ana Berrocal. Tiago Silva, Guillermo Tormo Sevilla, Alvaro Garcia Del Pulgar, Alicia Canadas Marcos, Declan David Barratt van West, Maider Fidalgo Talavera, Juilian Bautista // 2D FX Lynn Biederer, Axel Rousselot, Pierre-Méziane Sersour, Marcos Pereira, Alejandro Torres // Lead Compositing Artist Alexander Nachev // Compositing Alexander Nachev, Teodor Ralev, Radostin Stefanov, Vladislav Lakov // Line Producer Raya Chicheva // Lead 3D Artist Alexander Nachev // Finance & Administration Lyudmil Atanasov // Funding Bulgarian National Film Center // Cast Michael Johnston, Maya Aoki Tuttle, Jenna Pinchbeck // Illustrator Vassil Mihaylov // Graphic Designer Boyana Alexieva