The Caerphilly-based animation studio behind the latest Foo Fighters video

A computer animation studio is lighting up the world with its work – all from an unassuming office overlooking Caerphilly Castle. Move aside Pixar.

You may not have heard of Bomper Studio, but you’ve certainly seen its work, from packaging in supermarkets to TV gameshows – and now music videos for some of the world’s best-selling artists.

The studio’s latest work is for Rock band the Foo Fighters and follows on from a video they produced for Country singer Tyler Childers.

Started in 2014 by Emlyn Davies, who is originally from Penpedairheol, the company has grown from humble beginnings at business start-up centre Welsh ICE, on Caerphilly Business Park, to one of the leading creative studios in the UK.

It employs nine full-time permanent staff with a further seven to ten freelancers, depending on the work.

After working with brands such as Cadbury’s, Carlsberg, Hello Kitty, Levi’s, Polo Mints, Tesco, and providing visuals for Ready Steady Cook and Richard Osman’s House of Games on the BBC, the company decided to produce a short animation to show off its skills.

Coffee Run, released in February 2020, was the studio’s first in-house creative film about the pitfalls of doing a round of hot drinks for colleagues – and that caught the eye of RCA Records in America.

Emlyn explained that when the studio pitched for the work with Tyler Childers it was Coffee Run that won them the job. So impressed were RCA with the work, the record company came calling for the Foo Fighters project.

Emlyn, who co-directed the animation work on the video with the studio’s Art Director Josh Hicks, said: “The band couldn’t film anything, but they had some footage from [US TV’s] Jimmy Kimmel Live show and we were asked if we could do anything with it.

“Dave Grohl, [Foo Fighters lead singer] had the idea for it to be a graphic novel-style tale of debauchery and at the end we see it’s a priest.”

The call came mid-December and the studio’s animators have been working on it from their homes – as they have been doing with their other work for almost a year.

Emlyn said: “It has been hard because you have to find different ways of working. Our work is data-heavy so you have to find ways of working efficiently.

“Communication is the hardest. Usually we are all in the same room and you can have a chat – over the phone and Zoom is not the same.

“The team have been amazing at adapting to the new normal ways of working.”

Hopefully the Bomper team will be back in their Caerphilly town office sooner rather than later.