Brown Bag Films has unveiled Bad Pencil Animation, a new label focused on service work for prime-time animated content for adult audiences, focused on genres such as horror, drama, comedy, and action.
Sanatan Suryavanshi, executive creative director of Brown Bag Films, will lead the new business, reporting to Darragh O’Connell, co-founder and group creative director of Brown Bag. O’Connell will provide creative oversight for the new unit across a global team, leveraging Brown Bag’s talent in Dublin, Toronto, and Bali.
Nicole Gibbs, VP of studio strategy at Brown Bag Films, will lead sales efforts for the animation services provider.
Caitlin Friedman, EVP of global production for Brown Bag Films and current at Scholastic Entertainment, will lead the broader strategic direction for the label.
“Bad Pencil Animation is about creating space for a different kind of storytelling within Brown Bag Films,” said Suryavanshi. “There’s an incredible opportunity right now to push into new creative territory—stories that can be darker, more offbeat or more tonally diverse—while building on the same level of craft and quality the studio is known for. We already have the talent, craft and pipeline across our studios to support this kind of work at scale, across both 2D and CG, and Bad Pencil gives us a focused way to help our clients bring these stories to screen.”
“Brown Bag Films has always been driven by creativity and reinvention,” said Friedman. “With Bad Pencil Animation, we’re deliberately widening the lens—creating a home for projects that speak to older audiences, new partners and new platforms. Across our studios, we have an incredible depth of artistic and technical talent with experience spanning a broad range of styles and genres, and this initiative allows us to more fully leverage that capability in support of clients in this growing animation market.”
The new business launches at Annecy.
