Bruce Alcock

Bruce was born in 1964 in Newfoundland, Canada. His fascination with animation began at childhood. In his teenage years he started making small shorts and Super-8 films with his friends. These included animation experiments consisting mostly of toy fights that ended in flames. His passion for this visual medium soon led to pursuing Super-8 film courses at his local college. During his time there Bruce formed of a film club for himself and like-minded friends. This group banded to a larger network of hobby-filmmakers and self-proclaimed geeks. They bought all the latest techy equipment and film gear and watched an abundance of NFB films at home on their 16mm projectors, immersing themselves in their love of film. Bruce explored many of his artistic interests. He studied Music in Performance at the University of Toronto in 1985 then completed his Bachelor of Arts in Literary Studies by 1990. After various studies he came to the realization that his one true love was animation. At this time, an opportunity arose to apprentice under Belgian animator Dirk van de Vondel in Barcelona. Bruce learned animation and design in the strong polyglot European tradition of the time. In 1991, Bruce co-founded Cuppa Coffee, still one of the largest animation houses in Canada today. After five years of building up this hugely successful studio, Bruce and his creative mind decided that a change was in order and so he set up Tricky Pictures out of Chicago's Backyard Productions in 1995. Further success and good fortune was to follow and again Bruce showed his acumen for setting up and nurturing a prosperous production company however the Pacific was calling to him. In 2000 Bruce returned to his Canadian roots, this time in Vancouver to set up Global Mechanic where he still heads up this burgeoning production company today. Global Mechanic produces films, TV shows, commercials, titles and more recently moving into the digital and product design space with the birth of Global Mechanic Labs. Bruce is an experimental artist. One that pushes conventional boundaries to try new techniques to create beautiful global work. His favoured techniques are stop motion and a combination of hand painting and drawing, but he works in all media. He generally leans toward abstract interpretive movement. His work is also heavily based in music, hence the movement is closely tied and measured to sound, whether in accompanying or analytical bent. Bruce has also directed over 500 commercials alongside his passion of animated movie making. His most well known commercial work has been on numerous Coca-Cola commercials for various international campaigns. The budget for these allowed for creative freedom. Bruce and his team collaborated with multiple artists across multiple countries. One of the spots resulted in the most viewed commercial in South Africa of all time.