Oct 20, 2020

Spire will make seven major hires in a bid to "bring new creative voices to make animation work

Spire Animation Studios, the brainchild of veteran producer Brad Lewis and entrepreneur P.J. Gunsagar, is starting to take shape. The new feature animation studio, which revealed its first film last month, has announced seven experienced new hires across creative and technical roles.

The new recruits are Shawn Krause (creative director of story and animation), Michael Surrey (creative director of animation and story), David Smith (senior vp of digital production and vfx), John Kreidman (producer), Andrea Paul (senior vp of production), Philippe Brochu (art director of conceptual design and environments), and J.J. Blumenkraz (director of creative and pipeline technologies). See below for biographies.

Lewis, who serves as Spire's cco, spent a decade at Pixar, where he produced Ratatouille and was a co-director and writer on Cars 2. He was one of Dreamworks Animation's first employees, producing their debut feature Antz before returning to produce How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (which was nominated for an Oscar this year). He was also executive producer of Warner Bros.'s The Lego Batman Movie.

Gunsagar, Spire's ceo, most recently served as ceo of education tech company Kidaptive, which he co-founded. He was previously president and co-founder of animation and vfx company Prana Studios. Lewis and Gunsagar aim to “bring a new creative voice to feature animation and apply a lighter, next-generation approach to production combining A-list above the line talent and animators with cutting-edge technologies.”

Spire's staff are mostly working from home for now, but the company plans to open a studio in L.A. next year. It currently has five projects in development - including Century Goddess, a musical about “a powerful young woman who is revealed to be a once-in-a-century goddess who unleashes her generational power of song and spoken word to ignite a revolution in a dictatorship where artists are suppressed.”

Spire has received funding from Connect Ventures, a new partnership between Hollywood titan Creative Artists Agency and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the world's largest venture firms. Executives behind the new initiative say they will have an initial focus on “supporting and enhancing a post-Covid-19 environment.” Tony Florence, general partner and head of technology investing at NEA, elaborated in a statement:

Here are official biographies of the seven new recruits: