Bully Pictures to Represent Danish Design/Animation Studio Frame and Director Luke Savage

LOS ANGELES—Continuing to expand and broaden the scope of its creative talent, Bully Pictures has agreed to become the exclusive, U.S. representative for award-winning Copenhagen design, motion graphics and live action studio Frame. Frame, whose work spans advertising, web media and broadcast branding, is known in the U.S. for its work for MTV, Adidas, Nike, Lincoln, Citgo, VH1, Gatorade and Volkswagen.
Additionally, Bully Pictures has signed director Luke Savage for exclusive representation. The New Zealand-born, French-trained director recently relocated to the U.S. to pursue a career in advertising. His credits include award-winning work for Sony, Ivory Soap, and Panasonic.

Frame is one of the most original and versatile boutique production studios in Europe. Led by executive producer Thomas Bay and creative director Anders Schroder, the company has amassed an international clientele and a design-driven body of work blending live action, visual effects and various forms of animation. Its recent work includes a U.S. campaign for Citgo and BVK USA in which live action scenes bend in the middle like a fold-up magazine ad to complete a message about “fueling good.”
“There is a design edge to everything we do,” explains Schroder. “When we work in live action, we strive to create compositions that are as beautiful as those we create with graphics.”
Frame was founded by Bay in 2002 with Schroder assuming the top creative post in 2006. Schroder’s background includes creative posts with Transistor Studios, Los Angeles, Engine, Sydney and Precursor, Washington DC and London. Bay began his career with Swedish broadcaster ViaSat Sport. Frame’s recent advertising work includes a campaign for Adidas’ Originals in which 3D animated shoes go through complex transformations to reflect their personalities. Frame also created an ad for Sony Ericsson and Saatchi & Saatchi where a speedy cell phone plays tennis with itself.
For Bully, the alliance with Frame allows it to offer a different type of creative service to its agencies and clients and the potential to package design and motion graphics services with its live action directors. The latter is important as an increasing number of projects involve a mix of creative disciplines with agencies often seeking packaged solutions.
“I love the range that Frame has in its contemporary body of work, from naturalistic humanity to high octane, stylized sports and technology ads,” Bully Pictures Executive Producer Jason Forest observes. “They fit so well in the present U.S. marketplace and have so much potential here. We are very excited about them!”
For its part, Frame is seeking to tap Bully Pictures’ deep contacts and excellent representation to further penetrate the U.S. advertising market. Bay also points to Bully’s success in representing Scandinavian directors. They know the Danish work and culture, while we understand American culture from our experience in living and working there,” Bay explains. “Bully Pictures has not previously been able to provide motion graphics, so that’s where we fit.”
Prior to his recent move to Los Angeles, Luke Savage earned a reputation as one of New Zealand’s best young directors. He particularly generated acclaim for Grenade, a public service campaign on road safety produced for Saatchi & Saatchi, New Zealand. For that project, Savage used explosives to blow up a car to show the devastating force of an auto accident. Thousands of pieces from the exploded car were hung by monofilament to dramatically suggest the moment of impact. The spot took two Silvers at Australia’s AWARD Awards and was also featured by the Design & Art Direction Awards and Shots Magazine.
Although much of Savage’s work is characterized by similarly arresting visuals, he uses a variety of means to arrive at the results. “I haven’t been pigeonholed,” he says. “I’ve done stop motion, comedy and visual effects, rather than just one type of commercial. I like doing things that are fresh and different, although I am drawn to projects that are challenging to execute.”
As an example, Savage points to his recent spot for Ivory soap which shows time-lapse footage of violet wildflowers sprouting and blooming on a hillside. Although the spot looks as though all of the visuals were captured in-camera, they are actually the result of weeks of visual effects work supervised by Savage.
Savage moved to the U.S. to advance his career and notes that he went through a lengthy process in selecting a U.S. production company to affiliate with. “Bully was at the top of my list,” he observes. “It’s an exciting company that is doing interesting work. They also expressed a lot of enthusiasm for me and my work.”
“Luke Savage is a true visionary,” says Forest. “He has the unique sense of creative authorship that we try to seek out in all our directors so they stand out from the pack. He has the great ability to cut through to the very heart of a concept and choose the perfect way of technically executing it.”
Savage was born in New Zealand but spent part of his youth in Paris where he attended film school. Upon returning to New Zealand, he established himself as a music video and documentary director, before segueing into commercials.
About Bully Pictures:
Bully Pictures is a full-service commercial broadcast, web viral, branded content production company located in Santa Monica, California. The company’s roster includes Javier Aguilera, Dustin Lance Black, Juergen Bollmeyer, Fredrik Callinggard, FRAME, Gaute Hesthagen, Daniel Kaufman, Dave Klaiber, Franco Marinelli, Greg Maya, Luke Savage, Michael Shapiro, Craig Tanimoto, Morten Tyldum and Eric Will. For more information, write info@bullypictures.com.