Hot Wheels City

In 2020, the pandemic put all feature film work on hold, and I had a secluded summer with my family in Burbank, CA.

While having a socially distanced beer with my Director friend, Ross Shuman, I discovered that several stop-motion productions had been cancelled due to close working environments for stop-motion animators during covid-19 pandemic.

I realized that much of this stop-motion look could be emulated in CG and began looking for remote vendor partners to help produce Ross’ series for Warner Media and Mattel called “Hot Wheels City”.

I called Nathaniel Hunter, who was focused primarily on creating digital assets as a commodity for Amazon, Wayfair, and Overstock using top VFX talent. I teamed with Nat’s company DreamView to start a media & entertainment studio and produced this stop-motion looking series, successfully creating 14 minutes of animated content in 7 weeks with a small crack team. This included recreating all the set pieces and toys, as well as matching the look and lighting as best as possible with the time.

This endeavor really surprised the team, and lead to an opportunity to pitch an original show to Bleacher Report.