Veteran animation producer and studio executive Rick Mischel (Sony Pictures Animation, Mainframe Studios, Bardel Entertainment, Technicolor) announces today the launch of the newly formed Artists Animation Studio, headquartered in Kelowna, British Columbia. Mischel will serve as the Founder; CEO of the new venture, which has emerged from his acquisition of the award-winning Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio (Hotel Transylvania: The Series, Summer Memories, Pete the Cat, Lower Decks, Alpha Betas).
Joining Mischel at Artists Animation Studio are Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio’s Co-Founder Todd Ramsay (Hotel Transylvania:The Series, Pete the Cat, D.N. Ace, Angry Birds) as Head of Animation while Ashley Ramsay, also a Co-Founder of Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio, departs to pursue new opportunities. Dan Christman (Agent Elvis, Invincible, DinoTrux) joins Artists Animation Studio as Supervising Producer, with Rachel Bepple (My Little Pony, Frog and Toad, Hotel Transylvania: The Series) named as Producer.
With the launch of Artists Animation Studio, located in the former Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio state-of-the-art facility, Mischel and his team will continue to build on the former studio’s legacy of excellence in providing full-scale animation service capabilities from script to screen at a competitive cost for studios around the world, with the help of the region’s enhanced Canadian Tax Credit incentives. Artists Animation Studio will focus on 2D Harmony and Hand-Drawn animation services for adult and children’s series and film content, advertising, and digital content creation.
“Todd and Ashley have built a top-tier animation studio, which provides us with a solid platform to further expand our service capabilities. I look forward to working together with Todd, Dan and Rachel, all whose work I have admired over the years, as well as the amazing creative talent based in Kelowna and British Columbia as we continue to grow the studio’s roster and range of projects globally,” commented Mischel.
“Todd and I are proud of the prestigious projects we and our creative team have developed and produced since we launched our studio in 2007,” added Ashley Ramsay. “While I’ve made the difficult decision at this time to move on to new endeavors, I’m confident that with Rick’s leadership and trusted reputation and Yeti’s creative legacy, the new Artists Animation Studio will be an industry force!”
“Building Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio from the ground-up has been a thrilling experience, and Ashley and I are extremely proud of our work,” added Todd Ramsay. “It is a privilege to continue our legacy by joining Rick in this new venture as Head of Animation where we will continue to push creative boundaries as we work together to deliver high-caliber entertainment to our clients and to audiences around the world.”
With 30 years of experience in the animation industry, Mischel has been an Executive Producer (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania:The Series) at Sony Pictures Animation since 2014. From 2018 – 2022, Mischel served as CEO of Bardel Entertainment, overseeing a team of over 400 artists and productions for some of the industrys leading broadcasters and IP owners, including Fox, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. Additionally, he received an Emmy Award in 2020 as an Executive Producer for Bardel’s work on Rick and Morty. Prior to Bardel, Mischel served as SVP & GM of Sony Pictures Imageworks, where he launched the animation and VFX facility in Vancouver behind hits such as Hotel Transylvania, Smurfs, and the Academy Award-winning feature academy award winning feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Previously, Mischel has held several C-Level positions, including Executive Vice President of Technicolor, managing over 500 artists in the gaming and animation arena in Los Angeles and India; CEO of Mainframe Entertainment, a publicly traded CGI animation studio specializing in television series, direct-to-video features, and gaming animation; and President and COO of the publicly traded The Harvey Entertainment Company, home of such brands as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich.
Mischel also has produced independent features films, including Suicide Kings and The Specials. He began his career as an entertainment attorney at O’Melveny; Meyers. Since graduating from the Classical Animation program at Vancouver Film School in 2000, Todd Ramsay has worked for over 20 years in the animation industry as a designer, animator, and director at various studios such as Atomic Cartoons, Bardel, Studio B and DHX. In 2007, Ramsay and his wife Ashley co-founded the creator driven studio Yeti Farm Creative Animation from their basement, growing the business to over 150 employees. Based in a 4350 sqf state-of-the-art studio in Kelowna British Columbia, the studio’s impressive roster of projects includes Hotel Transylvania: The Series, Pete the Cat, D.N. Ace, Angry Birds animated shorts, Rocket Monkeys, Mysticons, Camp Lakebottom, Little Charmers, and Max and Ruby. The studio also created video game assets for many EA Sports games and provided animation/design services for several advertising agencies.
Dan Christman has worked in animation production in various capacities for nearly 20 years. From producer and line producer to supervising producer, he has worked on many projects across a multitude of animation styles from traditional cell-based to CG and cutout and everything in between. Most recently, Christman served as line producer on Titmouse’s Agent Elvis for Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation; and served as associate producer on Wind Sun Sky Entertainment’s Invincible for Amazon Prime. He has served as a supervising producer at Bardel Entertainment, co-managing a team of 10 line producers with a crew of 350 people on fifteen productions; and was a line producer on Bardel’s DinoTrux for DreamWorks and Netflix and Captain Jake and the Neverland Pirates season four for Disney.
For over 10 years, Rachel Bepple has worked in animation production in various roles in Canada. Most recently, she was as line producer for Titmouse, managing and leading daily operations of 2D animation production in Harmony and Flash, rigged and traditional pipelines on projects, including Frog and Toad, My Dad the Bounty Hunter, and The Harper House. Previously, she was a producer at Yeti Farm Creative Animation Studio, where she served as the sole point of contact for all client, post-vendor and broadcaster interactions. Bepple began her career in animation working at DHX Media as an animatic/offline editor.
To learn more about Artists Animation Studio, click here. Read more about the journey of Yeti Farm here.
Original article by Caitlin Brown on January 24th, 2024 available on Accelerate Okanagan.
