Robot Fights Monster: Animation Is A "Fantastic Solution To Lots of Briefs"
Founded by producers Graham Pryor and Kade Robertson, creative collective Robot Fights Monster has launched in Melbourne.
Created with the goal of elevating and spotlighting Australian and New Zealand animation talent, Graham told LBB the studio wants to “show brands and agencies that animation is a fantastic solution to lots of briefs."
“There's so much talent here that doesn't get as much of a voice as it should.”
Specialising in animation with a strong emphasis on character-driven storytelling and humour, Robot Fights Monster brings projects to life through bold visuals and emotionally resonant narratives. The studio’s ethos is prioritising ideas, characters and tone to deliver animation that feels both elevated and entertaining.
They’re doing this through putting the work and the humour in the foreground of the studio, with Graham laughing, “Kade and I, we're deliberately backgrounding ourselves – we purposefully haven't taken any black and white headshots.”
Robot Fights Monster operates with a small roster of five directors: Studio Showoff, Gibbon, Haein and Paul, Sarah Litzenberger, and Jeremy Mansford. “We've curated people who have got humour and an approach that's different. It's unique, and it's not something that you really see elsewhere,” said Graham.
“There's a real range of styles and aesthetics out there – I think we've gone quite narrow. Everything's character-driven, and there's an element of humour in pretty much everyone on the roster to different degrees. Everyone is either from Australia or has spent time here. We've got a real range of voices.
“Everyone's got a history. Most of the directors that we've got on the roster have collaborated with each other in some way or other, and Kade and I have been working with the directors on the roster for a long, long time.”
For the Robot Fights Monster team, one of the draws of animation is it allows you to “go anywhere, tell any story and take any approach you want,” well beyond classic Saturday morning cartoons. For brands and agencies, though, Graham does find there can be “a nervousness” about committing to the animation process.
“One of the things that we come up against when we show people the work is them asking, how long is it going to take? How much does it cost? Am I going to freak out my client if I tell them that it will be 12 weeks to make this, and they're not going to see anything for six weeks beyond some designs and storyboards? People aren't comfortable with that, they're not used to it.
“We can hold your hand through the whole process, we can show you and guide you to the point where you see it come to life, and hopefully everyone is happy and the clients are blown away by it.”
As AI animation pops up in more and more places, the studio offers what Graham called a “tactile, handcrafted aspect.”
“A lot of what we do is hand-drawn – on a tablet, but still hand-drawn. We're willfully embracing that, we don't use AI. We're not really interested in it. It's just not something that we think is anywhere close to being as good as what we do.”
Whilst Robot Fights Monster is new to the scene, the ambitions for the studio are global.
“We're not naive. We know there's not a huge amount of animation commissioned, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. We know we're not going to get rich just catering to the markets down here. There's good work, for sure, but there's not a huge amount of it.
“The big push here is to get this out globally,” said Graham.
Whether it’s in Australia and New Zealand or further abroad, the team is sure of one thing: “We want to do the best work.”
“We're approaching the agencies at the top of their game, we're talking to these people because we know what we do is good. We know that we should be up there, and we've got the experience here. We've got the history with it.”
