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Brown Bag Films #ShadyBeginnings





We're celebrating 20 years of the studio this year - and we came across some photographs of Brown Bag Films when we were just a start up company back in 1994.

Given the laughter that these photographs provoked in the office, I thought I would share a selection of snaps from Brown Bag Films back then.

It all kicked off when Darragh and myself first went to the Galway Film Fleadh with a short film. We went back together every year afterwards with a new short, and this photograph shows the two of us having our first board meeting discussing our master plan to establish an animation studio:

Cathal Gaffney, Darragh O Connell, Brown Bag Films 1993

Our first studio was 500 square foot and we bought a photocopier before we bought a computer (invoices went out from an electric typewriter!). It was so grubby I think Amnesty international wanted to close it down.

Brown Bag Films Circa 1996

Today, I’m cringing looking at the state of the old scruffy office and I’m sure tomorrow I will want to pull this blog offline. But I guess it’s the past that makes you who you are.

Brown Bag Films Circa 1995

Thankfully, hairstyles from the 1990’s have improved (ie receded!) and I have since lost that ridiculous fringe. (Clearly I had no friends at the time because any friend would have told me how awful my fringe looked)

Cathal Gaffney Brown Bag Films 1994

Darragh O'Connelll early days of Brown Bag Films

They say a picture tells a thousand words, and this image shows Darragh and myself discussing strategy at one of our first board meetings.

Cathal Gaffney, Darragh O Connell, Brown Bag Films 1994

Its hard to believe that when we started off, animation was entirely an analogue process. We used to hand draw, then hand paint individual sheets of acetate them shoot each frame under a 35mm rostrum camera, a technique that hadn’t changed since Walt Disney brought us Snow White back in 1937. I have zero nostalgia for the antiquated process that animation once was and now find myself a self confessed technology nerd.

Darragh O Connell Brown Bag Films 1994

Brown Bag Films in the 90s

That’s all the photographs I’m prepared to share with you for now!

And now? We have improved on our office accommodation since 1994 and board meetings with Darragh and myself are much more civilised nowadays. Brown Bag Films is more like this these days:


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