Iervolino Studios celebrates its 2nd birthday! Just 2 years after the founding of our studio, we have managed to achieve something that was difficult to imagine: thanks to the talent, imagination and passion of our team and to the growth and progress of the largest animation studio in the region, the work of Serbian artists and creatives is now reaching millions of people around the world. What was once a dream is now reality.

 

OUR STUDIO

After just two incredible and successful years, we operate in two cities, Belgrade and Novi Sad. One studio, two locations, measuring over 1,500 square meters. Today, almost 150 artists, talents and experts from Serbia are working on original projects watched by millions around the world in a uniquely designed studio, equipped with the latest technology, a safe virtual environment, with a state-of-the-art production pipeline – enabling us to create great stories for the young and young at heart.  

Many exciting memories and occasions were marked within our studio’s walls in these two years – from Johnny Depp’s first visit to IES and the official opening of our Belgrade branch, to the welcoming of new employees and colleagues, as well as the expansion of our offices and departments. We have opened our Internal Training Center, organized numerous internal educations, visited universities and presented our story to students who were eager to learn more about us. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! We were partners of some amazing events, and we never forgot to have fun and celebrate all the good things in life – together. 

 

 

IES SUPERHEROES

We manage to tell these original stories thanks to our incredible artists and creatives, and most importantly, great people we have employed. That is the greatest and most important value of Iervolino Studios. Even though our studio functions from two locations, we are one superhero team. We believe in teamwork, commitment and constantly do our best to help each other grow throughout our IES journey. After a while, we realized that the Serbian creatives possess enormous potential and talent. This led us to easier focus our attention on finding the right people who see IES and the world of animation as their calling, not just as a job, opting for quality instead of quantity. 

 

LEARN WITH IES

In our second year, we officially started learning together by organizing internal educations, workshops and courses given by our colleagues and top local and international experts in our studio who were willing to share their knowledge. Mauriziana Gualdrini, an experienced and well-known Italian storyboard artist, visited Serbia and our studio to teach our team about “Performance in Drawn Animation”. Our incredible IES colleagues were also generous to share their knowledge, skills and wisdom through internal educations. Milisav Banković taught us all about “Animation with Krita”, Teodor Ajduk gave an inspiring lecture on the “Examples & Methodologies of Animation Creation”, as well as Miloš Živkov, who partnered up with Teodor, to share his tricks and tips on “Toon Boom – Harmony-Essentials Software Management”.

 

IES & STUDENTS

Education is key! We were guests at the University of Arts in Belgrade, the Museum of Applied Arts, and the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. Collaboration with the academic community and educational institutions is one of our key missions at IES. In the last few months, we have had the fantastic opportunity to present our story to students in Serbia, explain what Iervolino Studios is and what it means for their future.

There is always room at IES for people to learn, and we already have colleagues who have gone from ‘intern’ to ‘employee’ in our second year. We can’t wait for the next opportunity to talk to the young and young at heart to discuss animation, film, arts, technology, culture and meet our future colleagues who want to create innovative and original stories for audiences around the world.

 

IES INTERNAL TRAINING CENTER

We have officially opened our Internal Training Center (ITC) in our second year. The ITC is a training platform for animation professionals of all levels who want to develop new skills, perfect what they already know and possibly kick-start their career in the field of animation, film and VFX at our studio. The ITC came alive in April 2022 with a specialized course on “3D Character Animation“ by Dragana Mandić, Lead Animator at the Steamroller Animation studio in the USA. The course is well underway, lasting 11 weeks in total, designed for people with basic knowledge in 3D character animation. The best participants of the course are to be rewarded with internships or employment opportunities at Iervolino Studios.

 

People who come to the ITC to level up their skills and knowledge will often work on the same equipment and projects as our IES artists, follow the same pipeline steps, which will directly prepare them for potential work at our studio. We also had a pilot project within our studio which turned internships into jobs for half of the trainees who applied. Fun fact: they were all women! We will continue to organize innovative and intensive workshops, exciting projects, courses and training programs with top local and international experts for everyone eager to come to our studio.

 

PUFFINS IMPOSSIBLE

Puffins Impossible, starring Johnny Depp, is the first animated series fully created and produced in Serbia. It was created in Iervolino Studios and produced by our strategic partners Archangel Digital Studios (ADS), owned by Miloš Biković. In our first year, thanks to an amazing collaboration and teamwork with ADS, we successfully created 3 seasons (54 episodes) of Puffins Impossible.

Two years ago, when Andrea Iervolino and Miloš Biković started this fantastic cooperation, there were 30 people working on the realization of this dream. Now, more than 150 people from IES and ADS have come together and done it! Scriptwriters, storyboard artists, modelers, 2d and 3d animators, editors, designers and other artists from our studio together with the directors, sound designers, and compositors from Archangel Digital Studios, share the success that is Puffins Impossible and we can’t wait to continue our partnership.

 

 

 

Our second year was marked by the release of the series’ first season on streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, and TaTaTu in more than 100 countries. Millions of people around the world can now see the talent of Serbian artists, creatives and experts in this action-packed family adventure featuring a team of superhero puffins.

Last year, Johnny Depp came to Serbia to promote the series, opened our studio in Belgrade, signed a poster and T-shirt for us, and left a scarf for Johnny Puff – the character he lends his voice to. Puffins Impossible was made in Serbia, for the whole world to enjoy.

 

SPREAD THE WORD!

The second year of Iervolino Studios was marked by many exciting events, happy occasions and media appearances. Johnny Depp came to Serbia to promote the Puffins Impossible series, which was followed by a gala ceremony and a press conference. On that occasion, the legendary actor visited and officially opened our studio in Belgrade. We were guests on various TV & radio shows, and the most significant media outlets in Serbia wrote about us, helping us to spread our story! We were also proud partners of this year’s Adria Summit event and the Effie Awards Serbia 2022 gala ceremony. We got to meet some truly incredible people and present our artists’ work, and we’ll continue to spread the word about IES.

 

THE EXCITING FUTURE OF IES

Our incredible team continues to grow. The first animated series created in our studio has seen the light of day, already conquering the hearts of people around the world. As we open a new chapter in our story and enter our third year, we’re excited to welcome new colleagues to our studio. We will continue to organize specialized and intensive courses and workshops within our ITC, and with it, young talents will have the opportunity for an internship and potentially employment at IES.

Our artists continue to create more and more seasons of Puffins Impossible, as well as international live-action movies with animation and VFX coming from our parent company, Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment. We are working on creating authentic stories all united by distinctively local stories, rich in culture and tradition, with universal themes and quality, which everyone can relate to. We continue to promote important values such as equality, inclusion, teamwork, more than half of our employees are women.

We aim to support CSR projects and other projects in the animation industry in order to support the development of animation in Serbia and in the local community. That is why we invite all those who have good ideas and those would love to join us to contact us. We can expect numerous activities for working with young people and students. They will have the opportunity to come to our studio, to apply for internships, and more. We want our studio to grow and it can only grow with people.