Animation is a business unlike any other. Animation entrepreneurs strike a balance between being creative, technical, and business savvy. Because of animation’s unique production, it is an art form that has flourished in and out of the traditional Hollywood system, with noteworthy names popping up all over the world. Walt Disney first began his animation career in Kansas City, while Hayao Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli in the suburbs of Tokyo. One studio founded in Denver, Colorado, is looking to add its name to that list. Founded by RMCAD students, Bumpko Studios is a small animation startup with big dreams.
They may be the new kids on the block, but Bumpko is coming out of the gate swinging. In April 2025, the small team debuted their animated short film Cloaked at RMCAD’s Annual Frames n’ Games Film Festival. The film took home the most prestigious honor of the night, Best in Show for Long-Form Animation. Not dissimilar from Cloaked’s story of hilarious heroism and fantasy hijinks, the true story of Bumpko Studios has more than just a few twists and turns!
Networking in the Animation Industry
The name Bumpko began as an inside joke between animation classmates and friends Talisen Rae and Ricky Scalise, well before they had any intention of starting an animation studio. Scalise kept jokingly giving Rae’s cat, Bucky, more and more ridiculous nicknames until one day the duo came up with Bumpko. Around the same time, Rae was building a personal portfolio site and figured the name was perfect. Just like that, the website for Bumpko Studios was born. Assembling the team, however, was not quite so haphazard.
Connecting with Peers
Rae dreamed of creating playful and fun animated shorts in a queer inclusive space, which wouldn’t be possible without building industry connections. Connecting with peers in class, Rae would spitball the ideas that would eventually become Cloaked with Scalise, Lindsey Ball, and Marin Perkins.
While it took the team around seven months to complete the project, the general idea had been brewing for around three years prior to Frames n’ Games. As the gang’s jokes slowly turned into storyboards, they all realized that this wasn’t the type of group project that comes and goes with the semester; this was something special.
Rae, who had first conceived the idea of a vigilante in a classic fantasy setting, wanted to try their hand at directing Cloaked as well as being a cartoonist on the film. Scalise, whose passion was for writing, penned the final draft of the short’s script. Ball brought the world to life, designing all of the film’s backgrounds. Perkins served as the short’s editor and mixer, and also claims the title of having viewed the film the most times of anyone. A well-oiled machine, Bumpko Studios worked overtime to complete the ambitious project. Even still, the team was butting up against their deadline with a backlog of completed sketches that had yet to be colored. As the laundry list of tasks got longer, they began to question whether they would ever make it to Frames n’ Games.
Luckily, word spread about the team’s vision. Classmate, Callahan Meyer, had noticed the hard work and fun-loving spirit that the Bumpko team was putting into their project. Meyer thought to himself, “These guys are doing something cool, I need to wiggle my way in.” So each day, he would come to class and strike up a conversation, gently probing the team for updates on their project. At the same time, the Bumpko Studios team was slowly working up the courage to ask Meyer if he would consider animating for Cloaked.
He, of course, accepted without a second thought. Meyer quickly began animating for much of the film’s action sequences. However, the team wasn’t out of the woods yet; conforming their work schedule to the campus hours was limiting the time they could spend in the studio. The countdown to Cloaked’s premiere was nearing, and time was of the essence.
Connecting with a Mentor
Eric Sinha isn’t a name you’ll find on the Bumpko Studios website, and yet he’s played a vital role in the team’s development. As an animation professor at RMCAD, Sinha passed along much of his industry knowledge, which includes studying traditional animation under the legendary Don Bluth (film director, animator, production designer of The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia).
Additionally, Sinha had completed work for companies such as Meta, Facebook, and WhatsApp as well as premiered projects at Sundance and streamed on Hulu. The Bumpko team cites Sinha as one of their biggest supporters through the production timeline. With Sinha’s guiding hand, along with the advice of other educators such as Patrick Mallek, the Bumpko Team was made massive strides towards finishing Cloaked.
Beyond the classroom, Sinha had even more to offer the students: a studio space. Sure, it was small (not much larger than a broom closet), but it was the perfect home for a ragtag group of students just getting their business off the ground. Housed in the same office as Sinha’s business, Mile High Animation, Bumpko had greater access to Sinha if they ever needed his wisdom. Additionally, they were only a block away from Denver’s beautiful City Park, which quickly led to “company mandated walks” that helped bolster their imaginations when long days of animation got them down. Best of all, they could access the space 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bumpko Studios was no longer just a dream; it was a business with an office, employees, and a project nearing the finish line.
Building a Brand as an Animation Studio
The team was assembled, the studio space was secured, and all that was left was to get to work. With a matter of weeks before Cloaked’s premiere, the Bumpko team had a lot of animation project management to do. From finishing the character movement and coloring to dialogue recording and sound editing, the team was working overtime. Each decision they made slowly began to define the project more and more, informing not only what Cloaked would be but also the brand of the studio.
Defining Their Style and Niche
Early in the conception of Cloaked, Rae and the team decided that they had a much longer story to tell than the final 5-minute short. As such, they conceptualized their film as a pilot for a series of adventures that would feature a princess’ guard, named Nim, who also serves as a masked vigilante in the magical kingdom. The ongoing plot of Cloaked follows Nim’s misadventures as she attempts to keep the kingdom safe without jeopardizing her secret identity, particularly to the princess who laments the presence of a masked hero.
At the core of Cloaked is a sapphic romance between the princess and Nim, as well as the drama that ensues due to their different perspectives on crime fighting. This focus on LGBTQIA+ representation is not something that is siloed to their work on Cloaked. On the business’ About Us page, Bumpko Studios states “As queer artists, it is important to us to use our skills to benefit our community. Whether that’s making motion graphics for small Colorado businesses or doing work with queer organizations, our goal is to do work that matters.”
Crafting a Strong Online Presence
The creativity exhibited by the Bumpko team extends far beyond that of their work on the short film. As the small team put together their website, they made sure to highlight the playful style that makes them unique. Highlighting their team, their story, and most importantly, all the work that went into creating several projects, not just Cloaked. Additionally, as the premiere of their project drew closer and closer, the team wanted to leverage social media for animators to promote the short. Sketches, concept drawings, and even behind-the-scenes videos all helped to springboard Cloaked to a broader audience ahead of the first public showing.
Showcasing Their Work
Finally, the day of the premiere came on April 25, 2025. The Annual Frames n’ Games Film Festival was showcasing animation projects by dozens of students. The Bumpko Studios team arrived at the screening equal parts anxious and excited.
Their film would not only debut in front of more than 100 RMCAD students, faculty, and community members, but also in front of legendary Disney animator John Musker (pictured in the center), director of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog. Needless to say, tensions were running high.
“My heart was pounding all day long. That was probably the slowest day of my life,” shared Rae, who was counting down the minutes until the short was shown to an audience. Consumed with unease, the team sought out Eric Sinha in the hopes of a comforting word just moments before the premiere. Sinha reminded the team to “do the dishes” they had left in the office, giving the team a much-needed laugh.
Still, the small crew waited with bated breath through the rest of the Frames n’ Games shorts until their film came on. Scalise shared that even before their logo hit the screen, their team recognized the first milliseconds of audio, and they grabbed onto one another’s hands and rode the wave of exhilaration together.
Winning at Frames n’ Games
Having just survived the first public screening of Cloaked, the team still had to make it to the awards ceremony. When their name was called out, the team let out a collective cry of joy! They were in such disbelief, not only that their short had won Best Long-Form Animation, but that they had even completed the project in time. Reminding them of all of the late nights and weekends they spent animating on campus, bumping into other animation students who were doing the same. A rush of pride overcame the team, pride in their work as individuals, as well as pride in the work of their teammates and close friends.
Having the RMCAD community recognize all the hard work and dedication the Bumpko team put into the short was gratifying, but more important than any award was seeing the crowd’s reaction. Showing Cloaked to such an enthusiastic audience “meant a lot to us, and it meant a lot to our peers. I think it’s such a great moment for us to get to compete and share,” said Scalise, Cloaked’s writer and co-director. The team remarked at how the audience laughed and cheered at the film, even in places they weren’t expecting.
The Value of Collaborating on Passion Projects
Reflecting on the best parts of the collaborative animation project, the Bumpko Studios team shared the sketches, characters, and frames that brought them the most joy. However, their favorite parts of making Cloaked won’t be spotted on screen. “Honestly, my favorite part about the whole project was having such a big team,” said Rae, “Being in a space with all of my favorite people in the whole wide world, doing all the same things, was just wonderful!”
Scalise added that even when morale was low and exhaustion was taking its toll on the small studio, those moments are when their team became a family. “We just had a lovely time, even in crunch time. We’d be working on a scene that we absolutely hated, but we’d be doing it together.”
In that way, the secret ingredient of Cloaked and their animation studio startup as a whole is not quality scriptwriting, great sound mixing, or even technical knowledge of their software, Toon Boom. The X-factor that has brought the studio so far was group cohesion. “I feel like the studio environment is something a lot of students come into school nervous about,” says Rae. According to Scalise, one of the most important parts of building an animation career, whether it’s at a big studio or your own, is learning to collaborate with teammates, saying, “The environment of working with other creatives…. there’s nothing quite like that!”
According to Rae, the short film is full of details that “nobody will see unless they are looking for them.” These include subtle animation techniques such as smear frames, creative allusions to the world’s miniature nature, for example, pine needles as nails, and even inside jokes like the team’s Dungeons and Dragons characters drawn into the crowd scenes.
From beginning to end, Cloaked is a laborious love letter delivered to the same team that sent it. Luckily, the film’s humor, action, joy, and passion are on such full display that even the uninitiated can’t help but crack a smile at the animated short.
To check out the final project, head over to the Bumpko Studios YouTube channel and give Cloaked a watch!
Where Animation Comes to Life
Whether it’s 2D or 3D, animate your dreams at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Our on-campus and online animation programs include 2D and 3D degrees that emphasize storytelling through character design, movement, and creating an animation demo reel. Get in touch for additional information or take the next step and apply today.
Many of the quotes in this story have been edited for brevity and clarity by the author, but are meant to retain the significance and purpose of the original speaker.
