היילנדר הפקות - הסטודיו לאנימציה המוביל בישראל

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Managment

Highlander Productions is a boutique content and animation studio based in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Launched in 2006 by Assaf Kupfer (Chief Producer) and Itai Wegier (Creative Director), the studio strives to be an innovative force in the industry supplying clients full production services under one roof and employing the best creative talents in the industry.

The team specializes in creating original content for TV, Commercials, Gaming, Music videos and Product Branding that will establish a brand’s identity and connect with consumers.

Our team, our experience, our passion! -Highlander Productions.

Featured Clients

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Propaganda

Services

Managment

Portfolio

Showreel

McCann

Transpot

Toddlers Reel

Avenue Q

4000 Years

Bana Panic

Election Song

Cellcom Troops

Shlomo Artzi

Emek Israel

Zoe

Spin Doctors

Crack in the wall

Showreel

McCann

Project: 'McCann Erickson '

About: An animated short explaining digital strategy

Technique: After Effects and 2D Flash

Client: McCann Erickson

Transpot

AdStops

Project: 'Transpot '

About: An animated Instructional video explaining the use of a media platform

Technique: 2D Flash

Client: Transpot

Toddlers Reel

Avenue Q

Project: 'Avenue Q '

About: Several animated shorts were created for the stage show. They were shown during the live preformance.

Technique: After Effects and 2D Flash

Client: Keren Or Productions

4000 Years

Project : ' 4000 Years in 4 Minutes '

About : Animated Short commissioned to explain the folklore and history of Jews and the Middle East.

Technique : Sketch, Traditional and Flash Animation.

Client : Keta Keta

Bana Panic

Project: 'Bana Panic '

About: An animated short created in-house

Technique: High-end 2D Flash

Client: In-House Productions

Election Song

Project: 'Last Minute Travel '

About: A Commercial for LMT

Technique: Cut Out - 2D Flash

Client: Keta Keta

Cellcom Troops

Play our Flash Game

Project: 'Cellcom Troops '

About: 6 Minutes of animation and 4 games were created for this project.

Technique: 2D Flash

Client: Cellcom and McCaan Interactive

Shlomo Artzi

Project: ' Shlomo Artzi - Imagine '

About: An animated Music Video created for the artist Shlomo Artzi

Technique: 2D Flash and After Effects.

Client: Hed Artzi

Emek Israel

Project: 'Emek Israel College'

About: An animated short detailing information Systems

Technique: After Effects

Client: JWT

Zoe

Zoe - Cheetah Episode

Zoe - Duck Episode

Zoe - Panda Episode

Zoe - Penguin Episode

Zoe - Monkey Episode

Project: ' Zoe Wants to be... '

About: A TV Series for toddlers that includes original motivational songs.

Technique: 2D Flash Animated with Rendered Backgrounds.

Client: Talit Productions and Fox Networks

Spin Doctors

Island

Office

City

Underground

Project: 'Spin Doctors '

About: An animated TV Series

Technique: After Effects and 2D Flash

Client: In-House Productions

Crack in the wall

Project: 'Crack in the wall'

About: An animated short for a facebook ad campaign

Technique: Flash with classic touch

Client: Uturn

Gallery

Characters

Cellcom Characters

Cellcom Sketches

Bana Panic - Prototype

Boxee

TNG - Origins

Loser on Line

Jesee Poses

Spin Doctors - Dakota

Spin Doctors - Soap

Soybean Lineup

Spin Doctors

Spin Doctors

Treasures

Monsters

Japanese Music Video

Elvis bear

Bana sketch

Bana Color

Bana Kids

Emek Character

Ulpanor Characters

Avenue Q Lineup

karly ice.jpg

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Branding

Soybean ship

Sport Series

Bana Poster

There Goes the Neighborhood

Celtark

The Last Crusader

TGN Background

Zoe Poster

Bana Panic - Wahoo!

The Last Crusader

Shlomo Artzi - Imagine

Kumbaya

Monsters Hood

Election Parody

Soybean gate

Soybean Love ship

Bus Character

Saint Malo

Hole in Sea

Loser - Sings

Loser - Golan

Hole in the Wall

Bad Business

Mother Crow

Avenue Q Background

Gomez

Kumbaya

Bana Bus

Field Shower

more designs

Characters

Branding

more designs

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Techniques

Flash animation

Flash Animation
Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created using Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. The term Flash animation not only refers to the file format but to a certain kind of movement and visual style which, in many circles, is seen as simplistic or unpolished. However, with dozens of Flash animated television series, countless more Flash animated television commercials, and award-winning online shorts in circulation, Flash animation is enjoying a renaissance. In the late 1990s, when for most Internet users, bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s, many Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation. One example is the first episode of The Goddamn George Liquor Program released in 1999, rendered at only 628kB. Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, most Flash films are created using only vector-based drawings which often result in a somewhat clean graphic appearance. Some hallmarks of poorly-produced Flash animation are jerky natural movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures), auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync without interpolation, and abrupt changes from front to profile view. Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which case they are often referred to as Internet cartoons, online cartoons, or webtoons. Web Flash animations may be interactive and are often created in a series. A Flash animation is distinguished from a Webcomic, which is a comic strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon. Flash animation is now taught in schools throughout the UK and can be taken as a GCSE and O-level.Flash animation production is enjoying considerable popularity in major animation studios around the world, as animators take advantage of the software's ability to organize a large number of assets (such as characters, scenes, movements, and props) for later re-use. Because Flash files are in vector file format, they can be used to transfer animation to 35 mm film without any compromise in image quality. This feature is used by several independent animators worldwide, including Phil Nibbelink, who saw his 77-minute feature film Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss released in theaters in 2006. For Disneyland's 50 Magical Years film featuring Live action Steve Martin interacting with Donald Duck, the hand drawn animation of Donald Duck was cleaned up and colored in Flash. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, a straight-to-DVD feature of the animated series Drawn Together, produced by Comedy Central and released in April 2010, discarded the series' traditional animation and used Flash animation instead.HistoryDeveloped by Macromedia, Flash (along with Macromedia's other programs) was acquired by software giant Adobe in April 2005, the newest version being Flash CS5.5. The first prominent use of the Flash animation format was by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi. On October 15, 1997, he launched The Goddamn George Liquor Program, the first cartoon series produced specifically for the Internet.[1] The series starred George Liquor (a fictional character rumored to have ended Kricfalusi's employment on Ren & Stimpy) and his dim-witted nephew Jimmy The Hapless Idiot Boy. Later, Kricfalusi produced more animated projects with Flash including several online shorts for Icebox.com, television commercials, and a music video. Soon after that, web cartoons began appearing on the internet with much more regularity. On February 26, 1999, in a major milestone for Flash animation, the popular web series WhirlGirl became the first regularly scheduled Flash animated web series when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime in an unprecedented telecast and simultaneous release on the Showtime website.[3] Created by David B. Williams and produced by Visionary Media, the studio he founded, WhirlGirl follows the adventures of a young superheroine fighting for freedom in a future ruled by an all-powerful "mediatech empire." The series originally launched in the Spring of 1997 as a web comic with limited animation and sound.[4] After gaining online syndication partners including Lycos.com and WebTV, the series first adopted Flash animation in July 1998.[5] Following her Showtime debut, the titular heroine appeared in over 50 Flash webisodes on the Showtime website[6] and starred in a million dollar multimedia Showtime marketing campaign. About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a Blender" to become one of the very first true "Viral Hits" on the internet gaining more than 90 million views since its release in 1999. The Von Ghouls went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Flash animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including Icebox, MondoMedia, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee of Marvel Comics launched an animated comics site. The Internet also saw the proliferation of many adult-only Flash cartoon sites. Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media, including Queer Duck, Gary the Rat, Happy Tree Friends, and the politically-minded JibJab shorts. Occasionally, the trend has been reversed: after being canceled from both ABC and Fox, Atom Films and Flinch Studio created net-only episodes of The Critic in 20002001. In another instance, Flash almost made the transition to the big screen. In 2001, production began on what would have been the first Flash-animated feature film, the ill-fated Lil' Pimp, which also began life as an Internet series. As potentially controversial as its subject matter was, it had a relatively large budget, a number of well-known actors (including William Shatner, Bernie Mac, and Lil Kim), a full crew, and a running time of nearly 80 minutes. Although Sony Pictures decided not to release the film, it was eventually released on DVD by Lion's Gate. Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music videos to promote their artists' releases online, including Madonna, Beastie Boys and Tenacious D, however none became the hit that allowed for the expansion of Flash animated music videos. Adam Sandler and Tim Burton among others, released original Internet-only animated works, but were not able to devise successful financial models and the trend dissipated, largely as a result of a lack of viable micropayment systems. Several popular online series are currently produced in Flash, such as the Emmy Award-winning Off-Mikes, produced by ESPN and Animax Entertainment; Gotham Girls, produced by Warner Brothers; Crime Time, produced by Future Thought Productions and HomestarRunner produced by Mike and Matt Chapman. Many animated television series are produced using Macromedia Flash, inspired by both the comparatively low cost of production and the unique style that can be achieved with the software, including Metalocalypse, Being Ian, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, Kappa Mikey, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Happy Tree Friends, Odd Job Jack, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, the BBC Three show Monkey Dust, the Channel Four show Modern Toss, Yin Yang Yo, Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show, Cinemax's Eli's Dirty Jokes, Queer Duck from Showtime, and Shorties Watching Shorties on Comedy Central. Other television series, such as Home Movies and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, both broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, have switched to Flash from other animation technology. Many animation film festivals have responded to the popularity of Flash animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or "Internet cartoons." Additionally, several exclusively web-based Flash competitions have been established. It is speculated that only the category "made for Internet" will survive, as competitions at animation film festivals are typically arranged in categories defined by film length and distribution channel, rather than by animation techniques or tools used to create the films.

Traditional animation

Traditional Animation
Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera. The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology. Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003). Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more 'cartoony' styles of those produced by the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons). Rotoscoping is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (USA, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981). Live-action/animation is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples would include Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (USA, 1988), Space Jam (USA, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (USA, 2002).

Cut out animation

Cut Out Animation
Cutout animation is a technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The world's earliest known animated feature films were cutout animations as is the world's earliest surviving animated feature. Today, cutout-style animation is frequently produced using computers, with scanned images or vector graphics taking the place of physically cut materials. The TV series South Park is a notable example (though the first episode was made with actual paper cutouts) as are Angela Anaconda and more recently, Charlie and Lola. South Park is now made with Maya and Corel Draw. Cut out animation is considered the oldest animation technique around probably the first in animation history.Traditional cut-outs belong to the stop motion animation family. It is one of the easiest and fastest to make, because you dont have to draw and color each frame from scratch. This animation technique has many variations and forms.In the traditional technique, the animator moves pieces of paper cutouts under a fixed camera. You shoot it straight ahead, frame by frame as they come. The arrival of the computer took cut-outs to a whole new level of madness and creativity. Computer cut-outs have the immense advantage of being able to go back and forth on the timeline and work with key frames, in the pose to pose method.Cut out animation got a whole new life when Flash showed up.This software, mainly a web authoring tool, made cut out animation so easy to make that EVERYONE became an animator. For one dangerous moment it looked like someone has found the legendary Make Animation button. This misuse of Flash gave it a bit of a bad name, and unjustly so. The quality of the animation depends on the animator alone. There is no Make Animation button. Sorry. The truly wonderful thing about Flash and its friends was that it turned a single home-based animator into an animation studio. Flash today is used for everything between banner web animations to full feature films shown in the cinema. Many TV productions use it to cut budgets and work fast. Ari Folmans film Waltz With Bashir gave animation director Yoni Goodman a chance to see just how far you can go with Flash cutout animation. It took them to the Oscar. Id say thats pretty far.

After Effects animation

After Effects Animation
Adobe After Effects is a digital motion graphics and compositing software published by Adobe Systems, used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. Its main uses are the origination of 2D and 2.5D animation, visual effects compositing and finishing (image adjustement, color correction etc.). After Effects can also be used as a basic non-linear editor and a media transcoder.Flash and After Effects each include many capabilities that allow you to perform complex compositing of video and graphics. Which application you choose to use will depend on your personal preferences and the type of final output you want to create. Flash is the more web-oriented of the two applications, with its small final file size. Flash also allows for run-time control of animation. After Effects is oriented toward video and film production, provides a wide range of visual effects, and is generally used to create video files as final output. Both applications can be used to create original graphics and animation. Both use a timeline and offer scripting capabilities for controlling animation programmatically. After Effects includes a larger set of effects, while the Flash ActionScript® language is the more robust of the two scripting environments.Adobe After Effects is commonly used for creating visual effects and motion graphics. It allows users to animate, alter, and composite media in 2d and 3d space with various built-in tools and third party plug-ins. This software is really amazing and powerful.Both applications allow you to place graphics on separate layers for compositing. These layers can be turned on and off as needed. Both also allow you to apply effects to the contents of individual layers.In Flash, composites do not affect the video content directly; they affect only the appearance of the video during playback in Flash Player. In contrast, when you composite with imported video in After Effects, the video file you export actually incorporates the composited graphics and effects. Because all drawing and painting in After Effects is done on layers separate from any imported video, it is always non-destructive. Flash has both destructive and nondestructive drawing modesAfter Effects was originally created by the Company of Science and Art in Providence, RI, USA. Version 1.0 was released in January 1993. Version 2.1 introduced PowerPC acceleration in 1994. CoSA along with After Effects was then acquired by Aldus corporation in July 1993; this company was then acquired by Adobe in 1994, and with it PageMaker and After Effects. Adobe's first new release of After Effects was version 3.0.

Flash animation

Traditional animation

Cut out animation

After Effects animation

Our Team

Our team
There is nothing like working together with great talents in a warm creative environment, thats what we're all about, take a look for yourself...

Contact

Address: P.O.BOX 48629, Tel-Aviv Zip Code 61486, Israel Phone: +972-77-4006509 Fax: +972-77-2006509 eMail: assaf_highlander.co.il

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Our team
There is nothing like working together with great talents in a warm creative environment, thats what were all about, take a look for yourself...

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