Welcome to Clubhouse
Welcome to Clubhouse!
Announcement from Clubhouse founder, Eleanor Stewart
Today I’m really proud and excited to be opening the doors of Clubhouse - a new animation studio in Glasgow, and the only dedicated stop motion studio in Scotland.
I am really looking forward to Clubhouse bringing playful energy, colour and vibrant animated work to the world. Over the past few years, as I’ve come into contact with more creative projects, studios and ventures from around that world, I’ve realised that there was a space for this kind of studio in Glasgow.
And indeed the proof of that belief was borne out through the demand for stop motion - so much so that I have had to delay the launch of the studio for several months due to a packed roster of projects. There is no shortage of demand for stop motion animation, and one of the strengths of Clubhouse will be that through my work on projects for advertising, online content campaigns, TV, film, children’s and artistic projects, I now have the experience and the relationships to build a bespoke team to tackle any kind of animation project from ideation to delivery, under one roof.
The founding of Clubhouse is the culmination of a lot of work and as anyone who has worked with me will know, animation and its creation is my passion and obsession. Every project I have worked on, over the past ten years of animating, has seeded a new idea about how I want Clubhouse to operate.
As part of honing my skills in stop motion I went to the University of the West of England to complete their prestigious animation summer school. From there I worked briefly at Aardman Animations, the world famous, four times Academy Award-winning animation studio, creators of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep & Chicken Run, the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time. I worked on the set of Shaun the Sheep and was awed by the professionalism, dedication and creativity I encountered on a daily basis amongst the Aardman team. Getting to work behind the scenes at a major animation studio was an experience that changed me forever in terms of understanding what was possible. And as I worked on creating tiny fleeces for tiny sheep in the model-making room, I realised that this huge, magical space for creativity only existed because one day the founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, had decided to make it a reality.
When I was at OFFF Design Festival in Barcelona last year, many agency owners and studio directors were talking about the bigger studios lacking the ability to be fast, nimble and flexible in creating - their overheads were too big and couldn’t be reconciled with small to medium-sized projects. Coming into contact with so many creatives from around the world really inspired me to believe that a specialist studio like Clubhouse could thrive in the world.
And having an international outlook has made me realise what is possible - I have been inspired by studios such as Mighty Oak, the Brooklyn-based female-led animation studio. Having started in a converted apartment, in a few short years have built up an award-winning studio from scratch working with clients such as Netflix, Nickelodeon and Sesame Street. Their amazing journey as a studio has made me realise what you can achieve if you embrace your unique creative niche and create a studio where your style and ethos is truly authentic.
One of the major strengths of founding a studio in Glasgow is the vibrant creative community - which is only getting better. Being able to collaborate with and access talented professionals is a priceless boon to a creative studio - and I want the creatives of Glasgow to know that the existence of Clubhouse is down in large part to you - your vision and passion is inspiring and I look forward to creating more opportunities for us to work together in the coming months and years.
Opening a studio in Glasgow was so important to me, apart from the fact that it’s my home city, there is a such a dynamic and forward-thinking artistic scene here, with a really supportive creative community. In many ways, I think my animation work can’t help but reflect some of that playful Glasgow sense of humour. Equally, I love that thanks to modern technology we can work with clients all over the world - and as some past projects have shown, Glasgow offers a significant competitive edge over London when it comes to overheads for major shoots. Why couldn’t Glasgow be the new UK capital of animation? I can’t see any reason why not!
I’ve been working with creative clients and partners on stop motion projects since I graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2009. My degree show piece, the paper animation Hoedown from Rodeo was awarded the Bram Stoker Medal by Glasgow School of Art and a D&AD New Blood award. That was my first animation project and it seems fitting that exactly ten years later I am moving into a new exciting phase of animation work down the road from where it all started.
I was first captivated by stop-motion animation as a child, it was the early use of stop motion in classics of children’s television such as Bagpuss and The Magic Roundabout that first captured my imagination, as they did for millions of others. My fascination with making small worlds which seemed to magically come into motion was born then and is still with me.
I hope Clubhouse will bring that magic to many other people in the future.
Thanks to Glasgow’s creative community and the wider animation community for your support which is invaluable. I look forward to welcoming you to Clubhouse soon to discuss new projects!
Eleanor Stewart
Animator, Director and Founder, Clubhouse
DOWNLOAD THE MEDIA RELEASE FOR THE LAUNCH OF CLUBHOUSE - APRIL 23RD 2019.