A compilation reel of my commercial work as an animator.

I had the pleasure of bringing to life cartoons by New Yorker cartoonists Will Santino, Hartley Lin and War and Peas.

From animating the pitch winning test to final delivery, I was along for the whole journey on this wonderful project. Transitions were the key: suitcase to airport lounge, cocktail stick to diving board; big ideas were needed to get between them and lots of trickery. Directed by Colin Hesterly and Matthias Hoegg at Not To Scale. 

Plunge into Turkish history with Monocle.

I had the privilege of animating The Monocle guide to hammams, bringing to life Gwendal Le Bec’s expressive illustrations. Helena Kardová and Jessica North-Lewis directed this animated guide to make visiting Turkish baths for the first time less intimidating. Fresh and modern line drawings are juxtaposed with the millennia old ritual of hammam.  Join us as we glide from the hot room to the cold room via a foam massage, using 2D character animation to capture the moment, and celebrate its uniqueness.

Watch the full film here: https://monocle.com/film/edits/the-monocle-guide-to-hammams/

Animator: Chris Cray

Illustration: Gwendal Le Bec

Directors: Helena Kardová & Jessica North-Lewis

Producer: Helena Kardová

Writer: Sophie Grove

Narrator: Sophie Grove

I got the chance to animate some John Lennon drawings for the White Album's 50th Anniversary, directed by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney.

Production Trunk Animation

Director Alasdair + Jock

2D Animation Chris Cray

2D Animation Alex Potts

Producer Layla Atkinson,Richard Barnett

Director of Photography Pete Ellmore

Stop-Motion Animation Andy Biddle

Stop-Motion Animation Tobias Fouracre

CGI Artist Rok Predin

I animated on this bold and playful animation for the world-leading meditation app Headspace.

Production company: Nexus Studios

I had the pleasure to animate on this beautiful, eye-catching film for Wacom Cintiq. The film imaginatively illustrates the typical journey and endeavors that an Artist takes through their career to realize their creative ambitions.

The film tells this story through the artist’s own creation, an illustration of an eagle set in a landscape.

We follow the eagle as it journeys and evolves through six different scenes, each a metaphor for representing the typical ups and downs of a creative career, including; artistic infancy, early commissions, client rejection and picking oneself up to improve and go again, gaining more confidence, achieving commercial success, through to finally mastering your skill to receive global adulation.

Every scene was created in an illustrative style that reflected the capability of Cintiq as a creative tool, but these scenes also needed to be animated in a different style each time to help show how an artist’s style might evolve over time and to appeal to the widest possible range of Wacom users too.

The animation was conceived so that the film also works, in its entirety as a seamless single-shot sequence. The results are a creatively unique film that reflects and is faithful to the creativity inherent to the Wacom brand itself.

Client: Wacom

Agency: Iris

CD: Richard Hayter

Creatives: Naresh & Arash

Producer: Matthew Hodges

Production: Not To Scale

Director: BAT

Executive Producer & Writer: Dan O’Rourke

Producer: Edward Tull

Design: Jose Luis Agreda, Rune Fisker, Juan Barabani

Animation: Chris Cray, Matt Partridge, Geoff McDowall, Nicholas Brooks, Sergei Shabarov, Andreia Serrano, Natalia Bedrossian

Music supervision: Wake The Town

Music: ‘Creative Journey’ by Wake The Town

Full of funny twists and character mishaps, comic timing and pathos were the key to these halloween themed idents for Pop. Directed by Dan Britt at Blinkink.

In this animated Comedy Playground pilot from Channel 4, we visit a version of London much like our own - two young people navigate the world of flat-shares, dating and simple survival with the help of their goblin housemate whose unconventional solutions often create more problems than they solve.

Production company: Blink Industries

Writer & director: Dan Britt

Producer: Hugo Donkin

Animation: Chris Cray, Alina Besanidou, Jac Clinch, Guy Field, Campbell Hartley, Reg Isaac, Charlie Lane-Bush, Bárbara Oliveira, Camille Perrin, Pete Sharp, Weiden Wong

This series of eight animated films unpacks TV Licensing’s most popular topics, such as: how you get licenced, protecting yourself from scams and making the switch to going paperless.

The films place charming presenter Nelly Telly front and centre of this hand-drawn world, helping to make each topic clear and engaging.

A big-hearted and nostalgic project, this commercial required nuanced character performances to highlight the transformative joy of a family holiday. Directed by Colin Hesterly at Not To Scale. 

Celebrate 100 years of the BBC with cutout animation!

Chris Cray had the great honour of recasting Captain Pugwash with Rod Stewart and Ted Heath for Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s Adam Curtis-style documentary spoof.

The Love Box in Your Living Room is available to watch now on BBCiPlayer.

Director: Daniel Kleinman

Producers: Bradley Adams, Harry Enfield and Bryan Elsley

Production Company: Balloon Entertainment

Animation director: Chris Cray

Design: Chris Cray, Jennifer Kirkham

Animation: Chris Cray, Ana García Sebastiá

"For everybody who loves to crunch like we do, we ramble on."

Here are two joyfully whimsical TV spots I animated on for Kettle Chips.

Credits:

Client - Kettle Chips

Production Company - Passion Pictures
Director - Andy Martin

I had the pleasure of animating on The Harpy’s Tale, an installment of The Ardbeg Anthology Collection. Inspired by tales of unbelievable encounters and legendary brushes with the strangest creatures ever purported to stalk Islay.

Client: Ardbeg

Production Company: Hush London

Director: Alon Ziv

Producer: Lydia Russell

Animation: Chris Cray, Dave Anderson, Will Barras

Join The Macallan on a voyage through time; past, present and future.

I had the pleasure of animating on ‘The Heart of the Spirit’, an immersive digital experience celebrating 200 years of The Macallan, Based on beautiful illustrations by Javi Aznarez.

Client: The Macallan

Agency: Potlatch

Production Company: Pixel Artworks

I had the privilege of bringing to life the cover art of Flora Carr’s THE TOWER for Hutchinson Heinemann.

It was exciting to translate the evocative interplay of bold shapes and colours from still image to animation. Deviating from the original design to bring it to life and then to resolve back again to reveal the final cover art.

To celebrate reaching 2bn users, Facebook worked with Nexus Studios to celebrate the milestone with ‘Good Adds Up’, a personalised animated film which thanks users for being part of the community, for sharing moments and more.  

Directed by Nexus Studios’ Johnny Kelly, myself and a team of animators and compositors brought a cast of characters to life who come together to do amazing things, guiding you through your own film that’s populated by your photo moments as shared on Facebook.The campaign kicks off with the central idea of ‘Good Adds Up’ and the thought that the characters could ‘add up’ too, coming together and becoming more than the sum of their parts. Due to the size of the audience we had to invent a set of character movements and performances that didn’t feel overly-specific to one country or another and found that it is often easier to identify with a character if he’s a little abstracted, than one that is figurative and realistic.

I had the pleasure of working as lead animator on a short film and pilot for Tulipop, an Icelandic lifestyle brand in co-production with Blink Industries. As this has yet to air, I can currently share this trailer.

I directed, designed and animated a series of playful idents for Rowse, the number one honey brand in the UK. These charming spots can be found airing during ITV Daybreak Weather. 

They follow chirpy characterful Bees on their seasonal adventures to collect pollen.with bees reacting to different weather conditions, having BBQs, awaiting the pollen count and having their clothes blown off in the wind. The commercials were aesthetically informed by Dr.Seuss and A.A. Milne’s children’s book illustrations.

One of Bloomingdale's Dubai's largest regional advertising campaign to date, which marked the store's launch of its 'New York, New York' clothing collection in 2012. I directed, designed and animated the television and cinema commercial, set in a surreal world where King Kong and the Statue of Liberty live in a literal big Apple, which is having arrows fired at it by William Tell. Produced at Th1ng for MullenLowe Dubai.

I created these idents for Change4Life's 'Shake Up Time' campaign to encourage children to be more active.

Agency: M&C Saatchi
Client: Public Health England
Director: Chris Cray
Animators: Chris Cray, Harriet Gillian, Antoine Bourruel, Nathan Brenville

I animated on this 2D launch trailer for Cookie Run: Kingdom’s highly anticipated collaboration with Kpop sensation, BTS.

Production Company: Passion Animation Studios

Director: Andy Martin

Executive Producer: Katie Grayson

Producer: Kate Myers

Animation: Chris Cray, Barbara Florido, Olly Montagu

Krisi Zhupali, Sameera Joshi, Anita Gill

Andy Hague, Paul Cheshire

Strange Beast’s Andy Martin directed this spot for Fanta for Brazil and Mexico. The new ad takes the existing Fanta characters and puts them in the middle of modern teenage issues ‘throwing them a few surreal curveballs.’

I co-directed and animated this quirky hand drawn commercial for Ore-Ida's all natural Simply Fries.

Do you need a tree in your life?

Fruit-full Communities went to YMCAs and Foyer Housing Schemes, supported lodgings and youth groups around the country to support residents in gaining confidence and skills through our very special orchard project.

I worked with Outdoor Classroom Day to create this film explaining the importance of children spending time outside and the benefits it can have on their learning, health and well-being.

Lihn’s english is going backwards and she’s walking backwards too. How can she turn it around?

I directed this playful video for BBC Learning English to promote subscribing to their Youtube channel.

I directed and animated this campaign of four commercials where kids puts Land’s End productions through some extreme tests. The design and animation is informed by comic strips of the 1960s.

Screened at Brighton International Film Festival, Shouting Ginger explores the mixed feelings about going bald as a redhead. This super short film mixes stand-up comedy with 2D animation.

I wrote and directed these animated comedy sketches.

Sometimes we all need a confidence boost.

I wrote and directed this delightful short film, about a singing woodlouse who finds a way to live her dreams.

Writer and director: Chris Cray

Vocals: Anna Moorey

Orchestral arranger: Jo Ranger

Design: Jennifer Kirkham

Rigging: Ana García Sebastiá

Animation: Kim Alexander

Storyboards: Ravi Swami

Sound design: Mark Smith