Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan has today announced the creation of 22 new high spec jobs in the animation industry. The announcement was made at the JAM Media animation studio, the producers of ‘Roy’, a BAFTA nominated 13x28 live action/animation mockumentary for CBBC.
14 of the new positions will be in the area of animation production to work on JAM Media’s new project ‘Tilly and Friends’ and will begin this October. Six of the positions will be in the area of software development, one in finance and one in administration. ‘Tilly and Friends’ centres around a little girl and her six animal pals who live together in a cosy yellow house. It is adapted from a series of books by Polly Dunbar.
JAM Media Chief Executive John Rice said "Having secured three new BBC contracts over the past 12 months JAM Media is now in a strong position to grow our development, production and software businesses. Our team will grow to 46 people by October which means that our company will be producing three series per year, along with five new projects in the development process. Section 481, IFB Funding and the BAI Sound & Vision Fund have been paramount to the company’s success so far allowing us to create jobs in Ireland and exploit the international rights to the series we have developed."
The Irish animation sector had an estimated turnover of €60 million in 2010 and is one of the leading employers in the audiovisual sector. Irish animation has had much success in recent years with five Oscar nominations since 2002 and a host of animated series which are now screened internationally such as Brown Bag Films IFTA nominated ‘The Octonauts’ and ‘Olivia’.
For more read our Animation Special Feature Q&A with Emma Scott, Production Exec at the Irish Film Board - here
