Bent Image Lab

BENT IMAGE LAB (or BENT) is a production company and animation studio specializing in content development, television, commercials, music videos, short films, interactive media and visual effects for feature films. Located in Portland, Oregon, with additional production in Cadiz, Spain, the company was founded in 2002 by partners David Daniels, Ray Di Carlo, and Chel White.

Beginning in 2010, the studio began the production and development of television projects, most notably in the form of holiday specials for the Hallmark Channel. Joining BENT in 2015, former Development Executive at LAIKA and Production Executive on the R-rated animated feature film Anomalisa, Trever Stewart is currently working with the studio in the development of long form film and television projects. In 2015, BENT directors Joshua Cox and Solomon Burbridge started a division of the company called Design Lab, dedicated specifically to contemporary design work for clients. Their work includes a re-branding campaign for Cartoon Network. SInce 2014, the studio has also been developing augmented reality.

Bent Image Lab is known largely for its stop motion animation, CGI/computer animation and multi-technique projects.

One notable example of a BENT stop motion project is "Blue Christmas" (a.k.a. "Santa and the States")(season 30, episode 8), a parody short for Robert Smigel's Saturday TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live. The short, airing December 18, 2004, was directed by Bent co-founder and director Chel White, written by Robert Smigel and Michelle Saks Smigel with additional material by Rich Blomquist, Stephen Colbert, Scott Jacobson, and Matt O'Brien; voices by Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Erik Bergmann, and Robert Smigel. The short is a parody of the 1964 holiday TV special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," produced by the Rankin/Bass productions company. Bent Image Lab has since replicated the stop-motion style of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in television advertisements for AT&T, AFLAC, Bing and in a series of 2014 holiday promos for CBS commemorating the 50th anniversary of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." In 2016, the studio produced a ten-minute remake of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as a 4D attraction film for SimEx-Iwerks. Another significant stop motion project is Jingle All the Way (TV special), a holiday special for Hallmark Channel. In reviewing the 2011 television holiday programs, Mike Hale of The New York Times called Jingle All the Way (TV special) "...by far the best of the bunch." Other notable BENT stop-motion productions include director Rob Shaw's ongoing "Rats" segments for the IFC show “Portlandia”, with Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, as well as commercials for Honda, Gatorade, Lux, OfficeMax, Kelloggs, Tinactin, and an anti-smoking campaign geared towards children for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.

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