Located in Portland, Oregon, the company was founded in 2002 by partners David Daniels, Ray Di Carlo, and Chel White.
[3] The company is also known for its visual effects work in motion pictures and television, as seen in Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, Restless and Milk, in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, as well as NBC's Grimm (TV Series).
[4] Since 2014, the studio has been developing augmented reality (AR) technology[5][6] and plans to launch their convergent computer vision library in fall of 2019.
[8] Bent's multi-technique approach can be seen in the Modest Mouse music video Whale Song (director Nando Costa),[9] the Thom Yorke music video Harrowdown Hill (director Chel White), the Coca-Cola ad Hidden Formula, the Lux soap ad Provocateur, a commercial for Kellogg's Rice Krispies[10] One early and notable example of a BENT stop motion project is Blue Christmas (a.k.a.
Bent Image Lab has replicated the same style and original characters in television advertisements for AT&T,[14] AFLAC, Bing, and in a series of 2014 holiday promos for CBS commemorating the 50th anniversary of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
[18] Other notable BENT stop-motion productions include director Rob Shaw's Rats segments for the IFC show Portlandia,[3] and commercials for Legos, Gatorade, Lux, OfficeMax[19] BENT's CGI work can be seen in the 2015 Annie Awards nominated Polariffic (director Rob Shaw),[20] as well as in their commercials for Honda, Nike, Coca-Cola, Koodo,[21][22] Nabisco,[23] Puffs, and the American Lung Association.
The technique of strata-cut was first used in Daniels' 1985 short film, Buzz Box,[26] then later in animated segments of the Pee Wee's Playhouse[27] series during the mid-90s, and in the music video for Big Time[28] by Peter Gabriel (1986).
Before co-founding Bent Image Lab, David Daniels was a director at the Will Vinton Studios, where he helmed commercial projects for M&M's, Levi's, Fanta and broadcast promos Fox NFL.
Their commercial clients include Honda, Bogs, Cartoon Network and a film for the Advertising and Design Club of Canada called The No Shit Show.