South African animation studio makes big splash on Netflix

A Cape Town animation studio is making waves internationally with a newly released, fully animated movie on Netflix called Seal Team, directed by Greig Cameron.

The studio, Triggerfish, is best known for its feature films Adventures in Zambezia and Khumba and has produced animation for the South African version of Sesame Street, Takalani Sesame.

Triggerfish was established in 1996. The animation studio has produced many feature films as well as short animated series.

Its most recent success is Seal Team, which was released on Netflix last month. The movie follows a seal named Quinn who usually spends his time relaxing in the sun or swimming for his life from great white sharks.

When Quinn decides that he has tired of being terrorised by great whites, he organises a team that is brave and stupid enough to bite back at the dangerous sharks.

The movie boasts some well-known names in the cast, including international singer Seal who plays a singing Seal named “Seal Seal”, and action legend Dolph Lundgren (The Expendables), who portrays a dolphin called “Dolph”.

‘Ridiculous’

Cameron said in an interview with TechCentral that the success of the movie is a “testament to the artists who worked on it and it being so ridiculous you can’t help but like it”.

Although the movie was made during a pandemic, Cameron told TechCentral that animation is “tailor-made for working at home, because it means you can sit at your computer and work” and the success of the movie (top 10 on Netflix in 27 countries around the world with over 10 million hours of viewing) is testament to the hard work that was put in by the team at Triggerfish.

Although Triggerfish is a local animation studio, Cameron said Seal Team shows that the company can compete with the “big boys” in the animation industry.

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Cameron said the animation industry in South Africa has “absolutely exploded” since he began his career 15 years ago.

The next projects in the pipeline for Triggerfish will be coming to Disney+ and Netflix, though Cameron didn’t provide further details.

Cameron, meanwhile, is working on a new project that will see him go into television, which he says is “a breath of fresh air from the movie industry”.

You can watch the trailer for Seal Team above.  — (c) 2022 NewsCentral Media