Hackett Films

Hackett Films is an animation company formed in 2004 by James Hackett and Jean Camden. A recent addition to Hackett Films team, Mary Benn, was the main designer for 'The Burning Season' project. As well as producing the opening titles and animation for 'The Burning Season' Hackett Films has recently produced animation for Enough Rope, The Gruen Transfer, From Little Things - The Get Up Mob, Unwired TVC and a new children's animation series for the ABC, BBC and CBC called Dirt Girl (created by another Northern Rivers company, mememe in association with Canadian production company Decode).

James Hackett has over 15 years professional experience in animation design illustration and production. He gained experience working on animated commercials and music videos in London and in 2000 directed a series of short animations for the UK's Channel 4. Since returning to Sydney he's worked on several programs for the ABC and expanded his repertoire to include live action production. Since hackett Films began in 2003, James has directed numerous award winning music videos, program titles and commercials.

Jean Camden studied graphic design and multimedia at the Western Australian School of Art and Design. After graduating, she worked for a year at Q Multimedium, before moving to Sydney in 2001. Jean also worked at the ABC as a motion graphics artist before creating successful television commercials and music videos as both a director and an animator

After a five year stint in architecture, Mary Benn studied digital media and design and the College of Fine Arts, Sydney. Whilst creating short films at uni, she worked as a freelance interactive multimedia designer, draftsperson, illustrator and 2D animator. After graduating she worked for a year at Resolution Design as an animation director and designer/compositor, creating high end TVCs, short film and music video before joining Hackett films in 2008.

Wrangling them all is Jonathan Davis, who has worked in television, design and animation as a producer, post production supervisor , editor and studio manager. Beginning as an editor in Sydney, he spent several years working in London, and then returned to Sydney to work as a film effects producer at DFilm, then later going to work as a senior producer at Engine. After Engine Jonathan moved to Foxtel to head up the Design Studio, managing a large team of designers across a wide variety of motion graphics and print work. He joins hackett Films with a wealth of experience in all forms of television design and animation.