At Venturia Animation Studios, we were thrilled to help bring “The Donn of Tiki” documentary to life, especially with such a unique animation challenge! The filmmakers, Alex Lamb and Max Well, had this incredible vision: to animate different sequences of Donn Beach’s life in styles that reflected the various decades he lived through.

They initially struggled to find one animation style that could work for everything, from Donn’s bootlegging days in the 1920s to the classic mid-century Tiki era. Max and Alex even joked about how cool it would be to use different styles for each decade, though they thought it was just a pipe dream.

However, Max met Christopher Ninness, one of the directors of “Not Just a Goof”, for whom we created animated sequences featured in the film as well, and he connected us! When our Creative Director, Juan M. Urbina, sat down with them, he had already researched Donn’s story. His opening line? “I have this idea: what if we used a different style of animation for each decade of Donn’s life?” It was exactly what they had dreamed of! And that’s how we helped shape the visually dynamic storytelling in “The Donn of Tiki.”