CULVER CITY, CA — Sam Swisher and Trevor Shepard have opened WoodShop (www.woodshop.tv), a new production company focused on design and animation. The studio is set up for work on end tags, titles, fully-animated spots, live-action direction and production.
Shepard serves as creative director and leads WoodShop’s design, animation and live-action projects. His career includes helping to launch Rock Paper Scissor’s sister company, Elastic, where he held the role of creative director. He’s also been an art director with Stardust, and an animator/designer at Blind and Motion Theory.
Swisher is WoodShop’s executive producer. He started his film career at CAA, and then transitioned into the development office of Propaganda Films before segueing into commercial live action as a line producer. From there, he moved to post as the executive producer/head of sales for Public VFX, working primarily on photo-real visual effects.
The duo’s aim was to create a professional model that was based on how they lived their personal lives, focused on service, trustand quality. Both started working out of their homes, and were quick to pick up work from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and The Martin Agency. Before building out their custom space, the collective had performed design and animation for Nintendo, ESPN and Dickies. They recently directed their first spots under the WoodShop brand for Nestle and Sonic.
WoodShop is located in Culver City’s Helms Bakery, a repurposed 1930s bread factory. The new studio maintains the wood buttress ceiling and original concrete floors. The multi-level space houses three modular post production suites and has room for expansion of up to 40 workstations.
The studio’s gear includes After Effects, Avid/Final Cut, Flame, Illustrator, Maya, Nuke, Photoshop and Smoke. Alongside WoodShop is a 4,000 sq. ft. sound stage, which will be used as an extension of the company’s production arm.