The Brothers McLeod

The Brothers McLeod are illustrator Greg McLeod and writer Myles McLeod. They are English filmmakers of 2D animation, predominantly in the comedy genre.

The Brothers McLeod have won a BAFTA, been nominated for three other BAFTA awards, and won a Webby.

Greg is the older brother; Myles is four years his junior and the middle child. The youngest sibling is their sister who runs tableware company Fenella Smith. They grew up in the north Midlands town of Sutton Coldfield, but now work from Stratford upon Avon, famous for its association with the playwright William Shakespeare.

Greg studied his degree in Southampton. Myles studied Zoology and Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol. He later read an MA Screenwriting at Bournemouth University.

The first professional creative collaboration for Greg and Myles came in 1993. Their father printed and produced a series of children's activity packs called Peter's Pyramids for Posthouse Forte and asked them to create a storybook for one of the packs. The book was entitled Harry the Humpback, and the pair used pseudonyms for the project. They worked ad hoc on a few other projects for their father over the next seven years while working elsewhere. From 1999 Myles worked for BBC Bristol as a copywriter and coder for the Food and Blue Planet websites, and also wrote as a freelance writer for New Scientist.

By 2000 Greg and Myles were both working with their father and sister at the family company Spark and Zoom, named after two of Greg's cartoon characters. In 2001 they reached the short-list for the BBC Talent New Comedy Awards with a short animation about a pirate sports radio station. Over the next six years they worked on a number of animations, gradually improving their writing, illustration and animation skills.

These projects included corporate projects such as Esky E-learning, as well as comedy pieces that are more recognisable as Brothers McLeod projects such as Super Charlie Super Lauren (2003), The M Man (2005) and Fuggy Fuggy (2005). During this time they also had their first success in applying for and winning funding; they made their first short film Dog Tired (2004) with funds from Screen West Midlands and the Film Council.

In late 2006 Greg and Myles set up The Brothers McLeod Limited and began work on Pedro and Frankensheep, a series of 10 x 5-minute animations for CBBC Factual. (Series concept by BBC Producer Phil Cooper). Over the next eighteen months they also directed several animated commercials produced by Aardman Animations, including adverts for Skittles, Guinness and Stena Line ferries.

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