Sixty40 Sydney amps up the roster with new directional talent: Boca, Skull and Kyra Bartley

Continuing to attract globally celebrated directors, Sixty40 Sydney has announced the arrival of Brazilian award-winning mixed media director Boca (Marcos Ceravolo), French animation director/illustrator Skull (Frédérick Venet) and design led storyteller Kyra Bartley.

Arriving in February 2017 from Sao Paulo, Boca’s work is characterised by the use of mixed techniques. Whether it’s stop motion, live action, animation or visual effects, he has spent a decade working globally with clients including Unilever, Carlsberg, McDonald’s  Coca-Cola and Adobe. Boca arrives in Sydney off the back of winning three Lions at Cannes and four Promax BDA Latin America awards for his work, which includes Fox Life’s Jacquin’s World campaign.

An animation director and comic book illustrator by trade, Skull is well known for his street art. Honing his skills working on French animated TV series, including ‘Mandarine & Cow’ and ‘Gaston Lagaffe’, his move into commercials and music videos has seen Skull animate clips for U.K. hip hop artist Dizzee Rascal and French singer Sebastien Tellier, along with directing spots for cell phone network Orange via Publicis.

Since moving to Sydney, Boca and Skull recently partnered up on a project that celebrated moments when ‘Mothers Really Shine‘ in an online campaign for Air New Zealand on Mother’s Day with agency Host.

A background in animation and art direction, director Kyra Bartley’s eye for design combined with her ability to work across live action, animation and stop motion brings to life intricately crafted campaigns, as seen in her latest work for Myer, where she created immersive films for the Myer Wonderland lift. With detailed wrap-around screens, the installation pushed the boundaries of experiential animation.

Sixty40 executive creative director Simon Robson says the focus for the Sydney studio is to approach directors that bring a fresh edge to the local market. Taking over the local leadership reins from Mark Simpson, Robson looks forward to further developing the Sydney roster while he continues to direct campaigns for leading clients, most recently bringing to life commercials for Kmart, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

Says Robson: “Sixty40 started out as an animation studio and over the past 15 years has done some terrific work. We have now developed into a craft-based moving image house, combining artful live-action work with animation, stop motion and VFX.

“With Sixty40 founder and creative director Mark Simpson now heading up the L.A office, with a focus on new media, for Sixty40 Sydney it’s all about pushing our directors and letting them loose on the local market. Skull has just finished directing a super fun animated film for Newscorp and at the end of last year Kyra directed a beautiful paper-craft spot for Hungry Jacks. So whilst the plan is to stay boutique and beautiful, we aim to pack a serious punch.”