Fantastic news: “A Morning Stroll” directed by Grant Orchard and produced by Sue Goffe at studio aka, and “Chico & Rita” produced by our friends Martin Pope and Michael Rose at Magic Light Pictures are amongst those nominated for an Academy Award this year! Two beautiful films made by people we like very much. Congratulations from all of soi and all the best for February 26th! (FYI: here’s a must-read piece Grant wrote about the making of his films…)

We’re happy to announce that work has started on “The Amazing World of Gumball’s” second season, a collaboration between Cartoon Network Europe and us. Studio Soi, Ludwigsburg is still hiring rendering specialists as well as compositers. Production has started beginning of this year and will last until end of October 2012. If you are interested, please contact us at: contact[at]studiosoi.de

In anticipation of “The Gruffalo’s Child”, directed by Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschoetter, the BBC had kindly asked us to produce this little, gruffalo-themed christmas ident, directed by Jakob Schuh, which they’ve aired the hell out of, we’ve been told, these past few weeks. Thank you, BBC! Well, the wait is almost over, you can finally watch “The Gruffalo’s Child” tomorrow, Dec. 25th, 06.30pm, and then again Dec. 26th, 09.35 am on BBC1. We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Above, a little postcard from the upcoming “The Gruffalo’s Child”, directed by Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschoetter and produced by our friends at Magic Light Pictures and yours truly. Yesterday we had the pleasure of a beautiful team preview at the Curzon, Mayfair in London and we would like to thank all of you who came along and celebrated with us and especially our friends at MLP for putting together this special day. You can see “The Gruffalo’s Child” this Christmas Day, Dec. 25th on BBC 1.

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A sidenote on our own behalf: Work on the second season of “Gumball” will be starting soon, a collaboration between Cartoon Network Europe and us. Studio Soi, Ludwigsburg is currently recruiting flash animators / inbetweeners, who would like to join our team for this. The work on inbetweens is scheduled to start beginning of January 2012 and will last until end of October 2012. If you are interested, please contact our producer Ursula Ulmi: ursulaulmi[at]studiosoi.de

Above you see the amazing Ben Bocquelet, Joanna Beresford and Mic Graves proudly accepting their BAFTA for “The Amazing World of Gumball” this last weekend. All here at Soi congratulate the three and their wonderful team for their herculian efforts and all their success! Thanks for letting us contribute the wonders you’ve concocted, studio soi applaudes you.

Our shortfilm “Princess’ Painting”, directed by Klaus Morschheuser and Johannes Weiland, is being shown from West to East and is getting wonderful feedback: In Ottawa it was awarded as the Best Short Animation Made for Children, at the Chicago Film Fest it received the 1st Prize for an animated Television Production and at the famous Krok festival the film was awared “For creation of a story with nonintrusive morale”. Congratulation to the filmmakers and a hearty Thank You to all three juries!

Production has finished on Soi’s latest short for ZDF’s “Siebenstein” last week. In an amazing six weeks the lovely Adeline Grange, Benoit Tranchet, Bong Nguyen and Florian Parrot did a wonderful job bringing to life an emancipatory tale about a princess, her husband, and a dragon with a plan. The directors Jakob Schuh & Bin-Han To and all of studio soi would like to thank the entire team!

The “Little Boy and the Beast”, directed by Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschötter, has been awarded as Best European Animated Short in Sopot, Poland on September 15th. We feel very honored. Many, many thanks to the jury! To be in a group with Verena Fels’ “Mobile”, Damian Nenow’s “Paths of Hate”, André Bergs’ “Pivot”, David O’Reilly’s “The External World” and finally Jakob Schuh’s and Max Lang’s film “The Gruffalo” is really special.

Good news from Asia: In Korea our shortfilm “The litte Boy and the Beast” won 2011’s Grand Prix at SICAF in Seoul, in Thailand the film was recently awarded as “The Best Short Film suitable for older than 7 year old.” We’re very happy, thank you! (click on image to embiggen Uwe Heidschoetter’s lovely design.)