Too technical for the arts, too creative for the sciences; Chris Smith, Jesse Casey, and Michelle Higa knew they had to work together as soon as they met at Brown University. They funneled their collective love of music, computer science and semiotics into the world of animation, and Mixtape Club was born.
With a fondness for character-based storytelling, Mixtape Club has created work for a wide variety of clients, including music videos for TV on the Radio, J Dilla and most recently Yeasayer.
Current projects include a series of shorts for Showtime's The Tudors, visuals for Bette Midler's Caesar's Palace show that opened late February and a TV campaign for Saatchi & Saatchi.
The members of Mixtape Club believes their diverse interests and talents together produce something more powerful than the sum of their parts, leading to inevitable arguments as to whether they more closely resemble Voltron, Captain Planet or the Wu-Tang Clan.
Today, when they aren't trying to beat the Frogger high score at the bar around the corner, Mixtape Club looks for every opportunity to expand its creative abilities and commercial experience.
Mixtape will be represented by Passion Pictures in Europe. Hornet formed a production alliance with Passion last year which gives Passion access to Hornet's US directors throughout Europe and provides US production support for Passion's roster.