About

Jake Duczynski and James Hackett joined forces to become Studio Gilay in 2021. The team came out firing with the short adult animation series, COOKED, released on many platforms such as the ABC and TikTok. Studio Gilay pushes original stories with memorable characters and contemporary design. All of this is driven by a super agile, diverse, collaborative and multi-skilled creative team.

Narrative Strategies

Do you need to communicate something but are not sure how? Across multiple campaigns we have helped people work out what to say and how to say it. Whether it is SBS wanting to teach English, or ReachOut wanting help young First Nations mob with exam stress. Studio Gilay hosts a writer’s room, we get all the ideas out and stress test the good ones. We then go on to write and produce the very best ideas to connect with audiences, emotionally and intellectually.

Community Engagement

At Studio Gilay, we pride ourselves on meaningful consultation and the respectful interpretation of voices, stories and knowledges that resonate with a broad audience. At Studio Gilay, we listen and consult extensively on many of our projects. Through genuine dialogue we connect with Elders, creative practitioners and communities before embarking on a reciprocal collaboration. The dialogue is ongoing, with updates on our progress and involvement at key milestones across both development, production and delivery.

Development

Sure developing new ideas is challenging but we love it. We have a slate of our own ideas on the go and we are always open to new ideas and collaborations. Our projects traverse adult animation, documentary, stories from diverse communities and content for kids and families. We have been teaming up with all sorts of people to get our content ideas made and we are on the hunt for new partnerships.

Branding & Design

Within this big category our speciality is broadcast design (titles, doco graphics, explainers) and character design (a kids series, a mascot or ambassador). On the brand side, we have done the titles for hit TV shows, hard-hitting documentaries and festivals. We’ve designed characters for kids TV, brands and fine artists. From a singular laconic prawn for Jetstar, to a whole town-full of people for the Department of Education, a well designed character can elevate your connection with audience.

Experiential & Digital Place-Making

The Australian continent has a deep cultural history beyond the last 250 years. Studio Gilay has produced multiple works that fuse traditional knowledges that have existed for millennia with innovative digital storytelling. We have worked alongside the countries most prominent cultural institutions, across large scale installations, with city councils and government to produce work that reminds people of the land they walk on, the waters that surround us and the stories that exist within it.

Writing & Production

We love writing and production in all it’s forms, but our core skill is animation. We design worlds that have their own logic, their own look and sometimes we develop a new, exciting technique to get us there. Alongside animation we often produce live-action and we can combine the two when needed. We find each form informs the other, the skill of when to use a contra-zoom can be applied on a shoot or setting a camera for an animated scene.

Got an idea? Lets make it real. 

hello@studiogilay.com