Category Archives: digital

We’ve been spending a lot of time on Tooned, our partnership with McLaren, recently. The three-minute episodes star the voices of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button along with Alexander Armstrong as Professor M, an impatient Q-from-James-Bond style scientist.

We didn’t just create the animation here at Framestore, we did the whole thing. The shorts have all been written, produced and directed in-house, even the mascots you can see wandering around the grand prix were made by our Production Department.

It came all from a chance meeting but it’s grown into a cartoon series that aims to recast the way people view McLaren. As their executive chairman Ron Dennis says “Motor racing can come across as quite cold and scientific, and at McLaren we’ve probably been accused of lacking humour in the past. But a lot of humour exists in F1, so this is about putting smiles on people’s faces.” It’s even ended up on Lewis Hamilton’s (Hungarian Grand Prix-winning) rear wing.

There will be 12 episodes in total (we’re currently at number three), broadcast before each grand prix this season at around 11:45am on Sky Sports F1 in the UK. Just nine more episodes to make before November…easy.