H-Gun

H-Gun (1988–2001) was an innovative film/animation consortium which started in Chicago and expanded to include a San Francisco studio.

Their early videos included work for the band Ministry, LaTour, Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, De La Soul, Megadeth, Smashing Pumpkins, Killing Joke, Meat Beat Manifesto, Young Black Teenagers, Son of Bazerk, Anthrax, KMFDM, I Mother Earth, Prong, Consolidated, 808 State, Crystal Waters, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Melvins, SNAFU, Offspring, Infectious Grooves, Suicidal Tendencies, Josh Wink, The Orb and many more. Founding member Ben Stokes is also a musician and member of Tino Corp. Former founders, employees and freelancers are still involved in TV, Film, Music, Animation, Design production in the USA. H-Gun began as a collective of students from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College in Chicago who were involved with making art, film, and music. Originally, UNGH! was the name of the band formed by founders Eric Zimmermann and Benjamin Stokes. Once they began making visuals or music videos for the music they were producing, and for other recording artists, they created H-Gun. The artists approached filmmaking in a renegade style and in some cases defining "run and gun" style of filmmaking. The work was purely experimental and raw. Yet, in some respects the work was highly innovative, imaginative, controversial and certainly unpredictable. In some cases footage that would normally be considered "outtakes" was included into the edits. H-Gun were early adopters into the use of Apple Macintosh computers and the earliest versions of animation software. As the company evolved, so did the visual styles that the collective pursued. H-Gun became one of the few (at the time) companies in the world that would shoot its own live action film, design its own motion graphics, 2D and 3D animation, and integrate the work into its own finished pieces. The progression of the work created by H-Gun garnered world wide attention. The work was curated by museums, chronicled by newspapers, and TV shows. Also the work often won international awards with Promax / BDA, International Monitor Awards, Billboard Music Video Awards and the like.

H-Gun videos were often featured on marquee MTV shows such as 120 Minutes, Headbanger's Ball and Beavis and Butthead. H-Gun evolved from music videos into doing major content like network ID's, commercials, and show opens. For more information in greater detail, yet not completely up to date, the link below tells more about H-Gun.

In 2002, the studio moved to Burbank, CA, went under new management, and became Big Machine Design.

Various former members of H-GUN currently play significant roles in animation. John Schnepp operates LA based FX house King Robot, for example.

Clients

• MTV
• Cartoon Network
• Turner Classic Movies
• TNT
• Nickelodeon
• Pillsbury
• Locomotion
• M2
• Comedy Central
• MTV Latin America
• E! Entertainment Television
• Nickelodeon Russia
• Bravo
• NBC
• G4
• Lifetime
• A&E
• Discovery Channel
• Food Network
• YTV
• W

External links

• Website circa 1999