Multiplatform veteran attached to new Brown Bag digital arm

Irish toon house Brown Bag Films has launched a digital content division and has brought on digital media entrepreneur Dylan Collins to advise on its output.

Brown Bag Digital will work to take the studio’s productions to tablet, mobile and the web, and bolster the company’s push into original IP, which includes Disney coproductions Henry Hugglemonster and Doc McStuffins and new shows coming out of recently launched adult-skewed animation unit Icehouse.

“Our digital division allows us to move increasingly into the consumer space which is an important strategic step as we seek to own more of what we produce. The huge amount of expertise we’ve built up over the years producing the biggest kids TV shows in the world makes this a very natural and exciting direction for us,” said Brown Bag’s co-owner and CEO Cathal Gaffney.

To this end, Collins has joined to aid the push. He is the founder of multiplatform digital content companies Box of Awesome and Demonware, and also counts growing boys online game Fight My Monster and Jolt Online among his credits.

Gaffney told TBI Collins will also sit on the company’s board as non-executive director.

“Dylan’s experience across video games, consumer products and technology will be valuable to us as we continue to create and exploit our IP across multiple platforms. This is an incredibly exciting time to be a content producer and a great time for Brown Bag to be investing in technology, innovation and content,” he added.

“I’ve watched Cathal and Doc grow Brown Bag into the immensely successful studio that it is today and it’s an enormous honour to join them on the board. In many ways, they remind me of (influential gaming software) Valve in the early days,” said Collins. “With such a huge transformation happening within the worlds of TV and digital content, BBF are perfectly positioned to become a dominant player in the next phase”.