Act3animation, or Act3 for short, is an Australian CGI company, specialising in character animation, based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. Founded in 1992 by current

creative director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

Mike Hollands William Michael Hollands (born 10 March 1946) is the creative director and founder of Melbourne-based animation house Act3animation. His best known directorial work, the tragicomedy ''Piñata'', was a nominee at the 2005 Annecy International ...

, Act3 has produced various TVCs, FMVs and

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

History

After being founded in 1992, Act3 produced TVCs and promotional shorts up until 1999 when they broke into the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the Video game development, development, marketing, and Video game monetization, monetization of video games. The industry (economics), industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs wor ...

with an E3 promotional cinematic for Blue Tongue Entertainment's ''

Starship Troopers ''Starship Troopers'' is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in '' The Magazine o ...

'' (2000), which won the AEAF Award for Best Game Animation that year. Subsequent notable game cinematics include: '' Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis'' (2003), ''

RoadKill Roadkill is an animal or animals that have been struck and killed by drivers of motor vehicles on highways. Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) have increasingly been the topic of academic research to understand the causes, and how it can be mi ...

'' (2003), ''N.A.R.C.'', '' Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows'' (2005), ''

Neverwinter Nights 2 ''Neverwinter Nights 2'' is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari Interactive. It is the sequel to BioWare's ''Neverwinter Nights (2002 video game), Neverwinter Nights'', based on the ''Dungeons & ...

'' (2006) and Fury (2007). In 2005, Act3 made its short film debut with two films: ''

Anaka Anaka is a town in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is the site of the Nwoya District headquarters. Location Anaka is on the Acholibur–Gulu–Olwiyo Road, the main highway between Gulu and Pakwach. It is about south-west of Gulu, the larges ...

'', a short film made to promote the game franchise of the same name made by fellow Melburnians

Tantalus Media Tantalus Media (formerly Tantalus Entertainment and Tantalus Interactive) is an Australian video game developer based in Melbourne. It was founded in 1994 by programmers Andrew Bailey and Trevor Nuridin. Since its inception, Tantalus has devel ...

, and the award-winning

tragicomedy Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious ...

Piñata A piñata (, ) is a container, often made of papier-mâché, pottery, or cloth, that is decorated, filled with candy, and then broken as part of a celebration. Piñatas are commonly associated with Mexico. The idea of breaking a container filled ...

'', which has been screened at various international animation festivals, most notably the

Annecy International Animated Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (french: Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of J ...

. In December 2006

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia. Its main campuses are in Melbourne's Burwood suburb, Geelong Waurn P ...

launched '' Motion.Lab'' - an $800,000 24-camera Motion Analysis brand motion capture studio at its campus in Burwood, Victoria, with which Act3 is partnered: managing and executing its commercial captures. In 2014, Act3 produced the web series ''Bup & Endo''. Created, written and directed by

, episodes were released weekly on the

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel of the same name.Bup & Endo YouTube Channel About Page
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References

External links

Act3animation Youtube ChannelCGSociety - Act3animationDeakin ''Motion.Lab'' homepageCase Study: Act3animation
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) Australian animation studios Visual effects companies Companies based in Melbourne Entertainment companies established in 1992 Privately held companies of Australia {{animation-studio-stub