Brown Bag Films scoops International Emmy for Bing

6 Apr 2016

Irish animation studio Brown Bag Films has once again made a name for itself on the international stage, winning an award at the fourth International Emmy Kids Awards for its cartoon, Bing.

Brown Bag Films created Bing jointly with Acamar Films Production, a London-based animation studio, as a cartoon that follows a pre-school bunny named Bing as he experiences the world around him.

Running since June 2014, the cartoon has proven popular on the BBC’s children’s channel, CBeebies, with the panel of judges giving the animation studios the award for the best cartoon aimed at preschoolers.

The show also won an award at the Writers Guild Award ceremony last year in the category of Best Children’s TV Episode.

At the award ceremony in Cannes last night, Bing’s director, Nicky Phelan of Brown Bag Films, was joined onstage by Acamar Films’ Mikael Shields.

The cartoon managed to pip some of the most famous names in kids programming to the prize, including LazyTown, Latin America’s O Zoo da Zu and Japan’s Shimajiro: A World of WOW!

While the cast of Bing would largely be children, it’s worth noting that Bing’s carer in the show, Flop, is voiced by none other than Mark Rylance, the winner of the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award at this year’s Oscars.

Brown Bag Films has been doing rather well since it was acquired by Canada’s 9 Story Media Group in mid-2015, and was also celebrated by IDA Ireland’s Barry O’Dowd prior to this year’s Oscars.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com