What began as a small family business making hand-crafted animation has evolved into a digital studio spanning three state-of-the-art facilities. Through it all we have consistently embraced change, which brings challenges that inspire us to grow creatively. Yet one thing has never changed at Bardel: our commitment to deliver only the highest quality content.
Because Bardel has become a trusted name in the industry, we are the only animation studio in the world concurrently making series productions for a diverse slate of collaborators: Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network, DreamWorks and Warner Brothers. Bardel is also the only studio simultaneously working on feature films, prime time series, kids and preschool television, as well as projects for SVOD and VOD platforms.
- Founded in 1987
- Awards Won 13
- Current Productions 11
- Locations 3
Our ongoing desire to innovate has led directly to the formation of Bardel’s technology department, which designs our proprietary production and render management software, largely responsible for our production versatility and efficiency.
No matter how large Bardel grows we will always take pride in our past while focusing firmly on the future. At heart we are still a small business with a much bigger family. Only now, we make hand-crafted digital animation. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I very much look forward to our companies’ continued futures together, as Bardel continues to produce the greatest CG Television content for Nickelodeon.
Working at Bardel has been amazing. I’m so impressed with the animators at that studio, and with everybody really, not just the animators. They were an incredible crew and they were also directed and run by incredible people. There was so much creative intelligence that went into this project and working under the pressure. I’m just so proud of what we all put together.
Everyone at Frederator are big fans of the Bardel team. I think any organization working with Bardel is very lucky to have them on a project.
Bardel Animation Colouring House opens its doors with short films for Spike & Mike’s Animation Festival and commercials for Marv Newland’s International Rocketship. Humble beginnings but it paid the bills, and we knew big things were ahead. As in, whale big!
We provide our first full-services animation for “Shamu: The Beginning,” a half hour TV special for the Sea World Theme Parks. In our quest to innovate, we suggested submerging animators in water. In the end, we did the job the old-fashioned way.
With our reputation growing in TV we land work with Nelvana, MGM and other US studios on titles including “Fievel Goes West,” “Pink Panther,” and “The Magic School Bus.” Some confusion arose when Fievel got on the Magic Bus heading east, but thankfully Pink Panther intervened and restored order.
Our feature business takes off with our work on “Space Jam” for Warner Bros. It was a thrill to work with some of the giants of the animation world, although Bugs Bunny is much shorter in person than he appears on screen.
Bardel works on “Prince of Egypt” for Dreamworks, marking the beginning of a long-lasting relationship between the two studios. It was during this biblical epic that we forged our studio’s First Commandment: “Thou shalt not deliver bad animation.”
Our second date with Dreamworks produced “Joseph: King of Dreams,” a project that inspired us to build a hybrid production pipeline (Feature/TV) that assured high-quality at a low-budget. At Bardel, we’re proud to say, those two terms are not mutually exclusive.
A busy year. Bardel produces its first proprietary TV series, “Silverwing.” We add 3D animation to our services and work with Disney Interactive on Buzz Lightyear and Winnie the Pooh projects. Bardel also produces Warner Bros’ first Flash series, “Mucha Lucha.” Believe it or not, our entire studio was learning to live without sleep.
Bardel works on its first full CG feature, “Happily N’Ever After.” We also produced our second proprietary 3D animated DVD, “Dragons: Metal.” With expertise in 2D and 3D, we briefly explore 4D only to realize we are way ahead of our time.
Another busy year. Bardel enters into its first international treaty co-production, with Leaping Lizard Productions and Avrill Stark Entertainment in Australia, on the CG series Zeke’s Pad. We form an interactive division, Kid Riot Digital, because kids are the future. Well, kids and robots.
Our reputation for high-quality, leading-edge animation earns us work on Nickelodeon’s hit show “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” setting a new standard for the network for whom we also produce “Monsters vs Aliens.” With so many wild characters roaming our halls, our neighbors are starting to keep their distance.
Bardel finishes work on Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” for which we innovated again, this time seamlessly combining cell and digital. The end result is a film championed by director Roger Allers and star Selma Hayek, and heralded as one of the most visually eclectic animated features ever made. Other companies might rest on their laurels but we prefer wearing them as victory crowns.
By now our rock-solid reputation and technology repertoire are second to none. As evidence, we are concurrently in production on 9 TV series with many of the partners we’ve collaborated with over the years including DreamWorks, Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros’ and Cartoon Network/Adult Swim’s. The sheer volume of work, all delivered at high-quality on television schedules, is unprecedented. So how do we top all that? We’re just getting started…
At this juncture, we have earned a reputation as one of the most trusted names in the industry and are reaping the abundant rewards that go with it! In 2015, we we won an Emmy for the DreamWorks Netflix show All Hail King Julien! This is the year we were also acquired by Rainbow Group, one of the largest animation studios and licensors in the world employing over 1000 people! The company is headquartered in Italy, with subsidiaries in Moscow, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In 2016, the team brought home another Emmy for outstanding work on the DreamWorks Netflix series DinoTrux. Not to mention, in 2016, King Julien was nominated for an Emmy. Bardel was also recognized in the greater community when CEO & Co-founder, Delna Bhesania and President, Barry Ward, were nominated for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. But it doesn’t stop there…
In 2017 global conglomerates Rovio Entertainment and Mattel join the Bardel roster with hit shows Angry Birds Blues and Monster High. Today, we offer a bigger breadth of production services than ever before! We continue to train staff on and upgrade to new industry software.
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