Aardman promotes Efergan in reshuffle

Aardman in the UK has appointed its creative director of interactive to its executive board of directors as part of a restructure at the animation studio.

Daniel Efergan

Daniel Efergan has been promoted to executive creative director of interactive, having been with the Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep studio since 2007.

Efergan works across all interactive projects for the Bristol-based company, developing ideas and strategies. Prior to joining Aardman, he was MD of Subsub Skills & Production, a collective of creative and technical freelancers.

Sean Clarke, who was made MD of Aardman last year, said: “Daniel’s appreciation and understanding of the power of combining storytelling with interactivity has been invaluable as we’ve expanded into new formats and platforms.”

In addition to Efergan’s promotion, Aardman has appointed Joshua Baldwin as game director, while executive director of partner content Heather Wright will be leaving the company in order to set up her own creative and content consultancy. Wright has been with Aardman for more than 20 years.

Aardman said the restructure would help the company “embrace the thriving animation market with a company structure optimised for movies, series, specials and interactive content.”

The studio is also currently interviewing for a director of rights and distribution, with the successful applicant to be announced shortly.

Aardman became an employee-owned company in 2018, with creative director Peter Lord and former MD David Sproxton transferring a 75% stake in the business to its 140 employees.

The pair retained the remaining 25% stake via parent group Aardman Holdings and said the move would help maintain the studio’s independence.

Upcoming Aardman projects include the recently announced Robin Robin, a half-hour musical special coming to Netflix later this year, as well as the sixth season of Shaun the Sheep.

Later this year the studio will launch a new Wallace & Gromit immersive story to be told using cutting-edge technologies and culminating in a live event in Bristol in October 2020.