New Zealand animation house, Cirkus, has a gorgeous website. So I guessed that its work for Iinet would be just as quirky.

Yep. It is. The online video called The Original Upgrader was conceived by BWM. It began as a quirky script that traces the progression of Iinet founder, Michael Malone, from uni student to international internet entrepreneur. That script came to Cirkus with a brief to create an online video with a hand-made D-I-Y look.

Look at Cirkus' website. That brief is very much its thing. 

The main aim is to tell Malone’s and Iinet’s story using simple, chic and clever animation techniques.

So, much of the content is hand drawn. Some has been traditionally (cell) animated. The majority is 2D animated using After Effects. Other styles/techniques used by Cirkus are live action that has been outlined and tracked, 3D animation, photos, cut-outs, info-graphics and type. Cirkus and BWM gauged that a young, wild and free visual style makes the narrative compelling from start to finish and appeals to Iinet's youthful target market.

The BWM creative team was Matthew Ennis and Blake Arthur, plus producer, Ian Ford.

Cirkus put a big team together for a job that ignited its creativity hugely. “Our team was headed by animation director, Romain Borrel - aka human cannonball, now famed for his somewhat unusual but always creative illustration approach,” Cirkus lion tametress, Felicia Brunsting quipped.

“Other Cirkus performers were juggler, Christian Greet; knife thrower, Layne Howe; daredevil, Chris Lyne; fire breather, Sandesh Codhadu; mime, Priyan Jayamaha; fortune teller, Kylie He; strongman, Scott Wilkinson and Rodney Selby.”

Lion tamestress, Felicia Brunsting, is its producer.