Based in Wales, Griffilms was established in 1992 by animator and founder Hywel (Griff) Griffith. Since then, it has successfully provided its clients with a comprehensive multi-platform service that includes animation and effects solutions for Film, TV and the Web. Although the majority of its portfolio has been commission based, Griffilms also has a proven history in developing and producing. Among these projects are numerous short films and original animated features, including animated TV series, some of which have been distributed worldwide.

Key to Griffilms' success is its willingness to invest in the latest technology. "Griffilms provides clients with a creative and innovative environment where no day is the same," says Company Manager Alaw Griffith. "We like to stay ahead of the competition and we're always keen to invest in products that allow us to offer additional services to our customers."

One such product that has recently found a niche at Griffilms is Curious Software's Curious World Maps, which last year won a Queen's Award for Innovation. This powerful software package gives its users total creative control, enabling them to quickly and easily create broadcast quality still and animated maps of anywhere in the world. The software includes built-in vector databases of the whole world comprising detailed outline data for countries, regions, states and counties. It also includes over 150,000 place names covering towns, mountains and other physical features such as rivers, lakes and roads. Imported local data or satellite images can also be incorporated, making it simple to create in minutes an animation than zooms in from a spinning globe right down to a single building.

As the software is totally customisable, in-house styles can be set in advance saving a great deal of time-consuming graphics work and guaranteeing complete consistency, map after map.

"We are using Curious World Maps to great effect on a number of projects and, where possible, we try and incorporate as many of its elements as we can. As soon as we heard about the software and what it could do we were very keen to include it as part of our kit because we could see it being of real value to our customers," Alaw Griffith says.

Broadcaster S4C was among the first of the company's clients to benefit from Curious World Maps, using it to great effect on a series of programmes about tracing family histories. 'Hel Achau', a weekly programme that was aired during January and February 2005, followed a group of individuals as they tried to discover more about their ancestors. To help bring Hel Achau to life, Griffilms used Curious World Maps to create a number of detailed map illustrations that highlight the geographical movement of the families featured in the series.

"S4C's reaction to Curious World Maps was really positive," Alaw Griffith says. "Our graphics team quickly got to grips with the software because it is very easy and intuitive to use. It has a number of features that are especially useful when producing the type of high-end visual graphics we are known for and we are now able to create broadcast quality 3D visual maps in record time."

Curious World Maps is now being employed on another prestigious S4C project - a series entitled Byd Pws, which will be screened in March. Presented by Dewi Pws, the series is a light-hearted and entertaining record of a recent trek he made through the Himalayas.

"The maps we created really add to the viewers enjoyment of this programme because they set the story in its geographical context and give the viewer an easy way of identifying where the action is taking place. Curious World Maps is proving useful for all kinds of projects and we're delighted that we can now offer it as an additional service to our customers," Griffith adds.

Apart from S4C, Griffilms has also handled projects for BBC, HTV, Canal Plus, the EBU and Indeprod (Esso) as well as numerous independent production houses. These have resulted in a clutch of prestigious awards including two BAFTA Cymru awards - for the S4C careers website and for the S4C series Cnex, a Budweiser Foyle film festival award for Best Digital Animation on a programme entitled Big Snow', a Celtic Film and Television festival award for Best Animation for 'Cnex' in conjunction with Cwmni Da and an award from the WDA as recognition of Griffilms' 'Commitment to Innovation Programme'.

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