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Mercury Filmworks

Logo used since 2021
Industry	Animation
Founded	June 21, 1997; 27 years ago (1997-06-21) inVancouver,British Columbia,Canada[1]
Founder	Clint Eland[1]
Headquarters	Ottawa,Ontario , Canada[1]
Key people	Clint Eland(president and CEO)[2]
Number of employees	250[1] (2016)
Divisions	Lighthouse Studios (50%)
Website	mercuryfilmworks.com

Mercury Filmworks is a Canadian independentanimation studio based inOttawa,Ontario. The studio was originally founded in Vancouver by Clint Eland, the current CEO, in 1997. Mercury Filmworks has produced animated television series and feature films for a variety of companies, includingDisney,Netflix,Amazon Studios, andWarner Bros. Its recent projects includeKid Cosmic,Centaurworld,Hilda,The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, andThe Ghost and Molly McGee. The studio has wonEmmy Awards for its work in several categories, most recently forHilda.^[3]

Mercury has over 340 employees employed at its Ottawa location, and continues to show steady growth.^[4] In 2020, it was named one of the best offices in Ottawa by theOttawa Business Journal.^[5]

Mercury Filmworks was founded in 1997 inVancouver by current chief executive officer Clint Eland.^[6] The studio started with a small investment from friends and family, including Reg Eland, who became a partner overseeing finances from 1997 to 2002 and managing partner of the Vancouver studio from 2003 to 2006.^{[citation needed]}

In the late 1990s, technology was evolving to allow artists to paint and render images at a much faster pace and with greater and more consistent results. Mercury Filmworks was one of the first companies in North America to specialize in digital ink and paint services in Canada.^{[citation needed]}

In 2000, Mercury opened a studio location on King Street East in Toronto to satisfy a multi-year output deal for its services. Meanwhile, in its Vancouver studio, they producedD'Myna Leagues using digital ink & paint plus CG integration, creating the first Canadian animated television series to integrate 3D locations in a 2D series.

In 2004, Mercury moved itsToronto studio to Ottawa, where local animation director, Jerry Popowich, joined the company as a partner.^[7]

The studio was already a leader in the field of computer assisted traditional animation. However, in its Ottawa studio with the help of people like Director Christian Larocque, Rob Buchanan, Anthony Ng, Dave Merrit, Phil Lafrance, Graham Macdonald, Emma Gignac, and Craig Berry, it leveraged this to become one of the world's first companies to produce an animated television series entirely in one studio using the beta version ofToon Boom Animation's Harmony software. Using this software, they produced the seriesMischief City forShaftesbury Films andYTV.

The following year, the studio animatedGerald McBoing-Boing. This production was widely regarded as a new benchmark for quality in digital animation.

In 2007, the studio developed and co-producedToot & Puddle withNational Geographic for theNick Jr. Channel. This was the first use of advanced builds and rigging techniques resulting in a level of animation that was indistinguishable from hand drawn. This series set the new world bar for digital animation.Toot & Puddle was also one of Mercury's first proprietary series.

In 2008, Mercury Filmworks collaborated withWalt Disney Television Animation onKick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil. The series was the first full television series project with Disney and one of Mercury's first hybrid productions where characters were animated interchangeably and indistinguishably in both 2D and 3D. The series was one of the first examples of character-based CG Assists in a long form series. The studio collaborated with Disney once more withFish Hooks.

The studio again collaborated with Disney onJake and the Never Land Pirates in 2009. The animation project pushed advanced builds and rigging techniques to a new level.

From 2012 to this day, Mercury Filmworks animates theMickey Mouse shorts and television specials for Disney Television Animation,^[8] once again collaborating with Disney andDirector Paul Rudish on the award-winning reinvention of the character. The shorts have been widely regarded as the new benchmark when it comes to making digital animation look indistinguishable from the highest quality hand drawn animation.

2013 brought the fourth Disney-Mercury production,The Lion Guard, based on the theatrical animated filmThe Lion King (1994). The series involved advanced builds and rigging and heavy use of CG integration techniques for character and location assists. The series set the standard for feature-quality animation in long form television animation.

Two years later, the studio produced Disney'sRapunzel's Tangled Adventure, a television adaptation of another Disney theatrical animated film,Tangled. The methodologies used in the production were built upon the innovative techniques developed forThe Lion Guard, and was to push animation and character performance levels to a new high. Mercury continued to collaborate with Disney for the first season ofStar vs. the Forces of Evil,Legend of the Three Caballeros, andThe Ghost and Molly McGee.

Mercury Filmworks has been producingHilda, an adaptation of thegraphic novels of the same name, forSilvergate Media andNetflix since 2017. The series is one of the first that did not push the bar in terms of process or technology, with its artists involved focused on art, craft, and storytelling. The series has gone on to attain critical acclaim and is one of Netflix's most widely renowned and successful animated series. It is widely referenced as a benchmark in storytelling.

Mercury began to collaborate withApple Studios to produce content forApple TV+ in 2022, producing the showInterrupting Chicken. This partnership continued into two further series:Strange Planet andGoldie, all based on existing media.

Lighthouse Studios

• Official website

• 1997 establishments in British Columbia
• Canadian companies established in 1997
• Companies based in Ottawa
• Mass media companies established in 1997
• Canadian animation studios
• Irish animation studios

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• Short description matches Wikidata
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