Mukpuddy co-founder Ryan Cooper has been working in the animation industry for over 20 years. He shares his advice on staying competitive in the industry, what trends to look out for, and what he looks for when hiring people himself.

The animation industry today is more diverse, creative, and far-reaching than ever before. New types of audiences are demanding new forms of content, leading to more and more studios popping up every year. In Aotearoa, that’s led to a slow and steady growth of the industry over the past few years fuelled by not just local demand but international as well.

Mukpuddy co-founder Ryan Cooper has been working in the industry now for over 20 years. He says that the internet’s growing ability to foster collaboration across borders has given a new lease of life for what animators can achieve today in Aotearoa. Mukpuddy’s latest project, for example – an animated adaptation of the Spike Milligan classic Badjelly the Witch, spearheaded by the voice of Miriam Margolyes – is an international co-production between New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. It’s the first ever co-production of its kind, and is Mukpuddy’s biggest project to date.

While its mainstream success may be relatively recent with The Barefoot Bandits back in 2016, Mukpuddy’s beginnings stretch back to 2002 when Cooper and fellow co-founders Tim Evans and Alex Leighton started the company in a basement with just a single computer. Fresh from graduating from Freelance Animation School (which was acquired by Yoobee in 2019), the trio has spent the last 20 years stubbornly committed to the art of animated storytelling. Today, with up to 60 employees and an impressive lineup of work to its name, Mukpuddy’s slow yet steady rise is a testament to its resilience, helping to usher in a fresher, more vibrant era for Aotearoa’s animation industry.

With a new generation of talented aspiring animators looking to get their foot in the door, Cooper shares his advice on staying competitive in the industry, what trends to look out for, and what he looks for when hiring people himself. He also looks back at his time at animation school, and what it’s been like working with Mukpuddy’s many Yoobee graduates.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to study animation?

I’ve wanted to make cartoons ever since I was probably five years old. I loved watching Disney movies and animated series and was interested in learning how they were made. I always had an ability to draw and had family and friends that encouraged me, so early on I knew I wanted to do something related to animation or storytelling.

You studied at the Freelance Animation School from 1998 to 2001. What was that experience like?

For the first three years I did traditional 2D animation which is the type of animation you see in classic Disney movies. At the time, everything was done with pencil and paper. It was a very old-fashioned way of doing things, but that was just how cartoons were made back then.

Then I did one extra year of 3D animation which is when they’d introduced all the computers into the school and were just starting to teach the basics of 3D. I started right from the fundamentals, learning how to animate something simple like a ball bouncing across the screen. After that, I learnt how to clean those animations up so that it was ready to be handed over to someone to colour.

Your Mukpuddy co-founders Tim Evans and Alex Leighton were also studying at the same time as you. How did the three of you become friends?

I met Tim and Alex during my second year and we just kind of clicked. We were all about 19 years old and we all loved the same cartoons, shows, and movies, like Jim Henson’s The Muppets, Star Wars, and Steven Spielberg’s work. We also shared the same passion for storytelling and wanted to write our own comics and make our own cartoons and movies.

I think one of the biggest benefits of these types of schools is that you can find people you really click with and sort of team up with them to head into the world as a united front. Even if you don’t end up working together, it’s good to have a supportive network of people you can rely on in the industry.

So what happened after you guys graduated?

Over the two or three years that we did the course together, we kind of created what would eventually become Mukpuddy. So when we finished our degree, we thought: “You know what? Let’s see if we can turn this into something.” We moved into the basement of Tim’s parents’ house with our one computer and we basically just tried to make cartoons for the internet before the internet was even ready for it. That was around 2002.

How many people does Mukpuddy employ today? And how many of these are Yoobee graduates?

We often fluctuate between 30-50 people depending on the size of the project. Recently we had close to 60 people working for us on Badjelly, which is being released early next year.

Currently, more than 20 of our employees are ex-Yoobee students who work in the majority of the different departments we have.

What has your experience working with Yoobee graduates been like?

They’ve all been really adaptable and quick to learn other skills. It’s a real testament to their training that they’re able to pivot and try out different things. We sometimes find that we’ll bring them in as animators but later they’ll fall into different roles. So not only do we have animators, but also storyboarders, background designers, and compositors who help put everything together. This is because we’ll discover they have a specific skill set, or they find something that they’re interested in developing further.

As an employer in the animation industry, what sort of things do you look for when hiring?

Obviously a talent for art and animation is really good, but personality is also a big one. Looking at people’s work is a good starting point but it’s really important for us to see if they’re going to fit in with the culture and be a good team player. This is a very collaborative industry where sometimes you get a team of 40 or 50 people all working on the same series so it’s really important that people have the ability to almost seem like they’re sharing a singular voice. It’s all about communicating with other animators and seeing what they’re doing and sharing what you’re doing. There’s no use in being cut off from everyone else.

Is there any specific technical knowledge or practical experience you look for on top of that?

It’s all dependent on the role we’re filling, but it’s good if you’ve got knowledge of the software that we use. We’ve used Adobe Animate for a long time but we’ve now upskilled to Toon Boom Harmony.

However, if the person is able to learn as they go and is passionate about upskilling on the job, then it’s not actually necessary to know the software. We want people who can build on what they already know and are willing to ask the right questions to make that happen. We don’t like people who just sit there and feel like they’re in over their heads. I’d rather they come and get us so we can problem-solve together.

Looking at the animation industry as a whole now, how would you say it’s changed since you first started out?

When we first started, it didn’t feel like there was much of an industry in New Zealand. Since then, a lot has changed and it’s been interesting to watch the slow growth of the industry here. More studios have started to pop up, especially in the last five years or so, which is really nice to see not only because that means animation students are coming off their courses with the prospect of some work, but also because it’s putting New Zealand on the map as a place to go for animation. That’s our hope with Badjelly – that once it’s out in the world people might realise they can send work down to New Zealand and further grow the industry.

Are there any current trends that you see shaping the animation field right now?

I think there’s a lot more diversity in cartoons which is great to see. Back in 2014 when we originally grew from three to about 15 people, a lot of the animators coming through to us were all men. No matter how hard we tried to find other people it just wasn’t happening. But when we grew again in 2018, we had a much more even split between men and women coming through, including non-binary folk as well. Ultimately I think this comes down to the types of shows being made nowadays, like Steven Universe.

Social media has also changed things. There are a lot of people nowadays making a living on short form stuff they share on TikTok and Instagram. There are entire preschool shows that have become huge just by being on YouTube! So there are all these new ways to get to an audience now that simply didn’t exist before.

Lastly, what would you say to anyone wanting to study animation and get into the industry? Do you have any advice for aspiring animators on how to stay competitive and adaptable in this rapidly evolving industry?

I think having a really focused passion is good. Knowing exactly what you want to do is really important, but also making sure you have other tools in your toolkit. Being able to pivot, being able to identify when something’s close to what you want to do but might not be exactly what you want to do. Neil Gaiman said it best when he said keep your eye on the mountain in the distance. The path might be kind of winding but you’ll get there in the end, which is kind of what we did. We wanted to make cartoons but sometimes someone would come along and ask us to design business cards or posters. So I think being flexible is really good.

It’s also good to know that a studio might be looking for more than just animators: they might be looking for storyboarders or compositors, for example. So having good knowledge of a little bit of everything is really good, and sometimes just being willing to try something is a massive skill in itself.

Persistence is huge. You’ve just got to keep at it. If you’re an artist then keep drawing. You’ve got so many ways to show off what you can do now. We didn’t have that when we started Mukpuddy. Nowadays everyone’s got their own little portfolios online where they can show off what they’re doing.