About
Production Company and Creative Agency MD and Studio Head - specializing in art and…
Activity
4K followers
-
Ben Lavery shared thisFreeAnimal may be a brand new name, but our team has been doing incredible work throughout the transition this year, and it is a great start to see us shortlisted for two TIGA Awards at the UK Games Industry event in November. ■ Art/Animation/Trailer Supplier ■ Services Provider I suspect there's been a clerical error over at TIGA as there is also a third nomination... but until they catch it, I'll park-up the imposter syndrome for a minute, to say Tess Sanders-Smith, Samantha Lester and I are in phenomenal company alongside the brilliant Stuart Muckley, Gemma Brown FCIPD, Rhea Loucas, Liz Prince MBE, @Sharon Baylay-Bell, Rob O'Farrell and Ash Habib in the "Outstanding Leadership" category! Thank you for the hard work FreeAnimal team, and my brilliant partners in leadership. We'll see you all at Plaisterers’ Hall on November 18th to see how it all shakes out. Check out the full list of excellent games and very talented folks here: https://tiga.org/awards #TIGAAwards2026 #FreeAnimal #GameDev #UKGamesIndustryTIGA Games Industry Awards 2026 - TIGATIGA Games Industry Awards 2026 - TIGA
-
Ben Lavery shared thisI'm told by someone who understands algorithms and LinkedIn way better than me that yesterday's post was far too long, and that "little and often" is the way to go. Noted. So in short... This is us.
-
Ben Lavery shared thisWhen we sold TrailerFarm to Keywords Studios in 2018, I genuinely thought I'd be around for six months, collect a nice-ish leaving card, and move on to something else. Eight years later, I'm still here - largely because we kept building, and Keywords kept it interesting - allowing and encouraging Studio Heads to be entrepreneurial. I was able to launch new projects like Big Farmer and join the Leadership Teams of two other brilliant businesses; Player Research and Fire Without Smoke. I found something very much worth staying for - an entire ecosystem of ridiculously talented, ambitious and deeply committed people. A change is as good as a rest they say - and today I take on a new role - that is actually decades in the making. Two of the talented people I have been working with most closely over the last two years are Samantha Lester, Studio Head of ICHI, and Tess Sanders-Smith, Studio Head of Maverick Media, and alongside our North American colleagues at Gnet and KWM we have gone through some massive changes. Together we have re-configured our businesses into one global team that we aspire to be the most effective creative agency and production company in the industry. So today I am sadly saying goodbye to TrailerFarm - closing the most important decade-long chapter of my life (births, marriages, deaths, acquisitions… and mergers), but very proudly announcing the new era of FreeAnimal. To the former TrailerFarm team - you absolutely smashed it - this may be the closing credits of the OG game but the sequel is a juggernaut worth being a part of. @Sam and @Tess - working alongside the two of you has genuinely been one of the true highlights of my career - through unparalleled co-operation and radical candour (bluntness) we have built something real out of what could easily be perceived as just a logo change - and that's down to the two of you (and a few well-timed karaoke sessions and real planning meetings in The Ship in Holborn). FreeAnimal is what happens when you truly believe in your colleagues, set personal agendas aside, take down walls and build something together that no one could build alone. I couldn't be more excited to step up to the Executive Leadership Team of FreeAnimal with you today. And to every client who has ever come to TrailerFarm, Big Farmer, Fire Without Smoke, Maverick, ICHI, Sunny/KWM or Gnet for something brilliant: nothing about why you came to us is going anywhere. Same craft, same obsession with getting it right, same team knowledge, just now with walls down, and all our collective focus on being wildly effective for you in an industry that will never be the same again. Onwards. 🐾
-
Ben Lavery reposted thisBen Lavery reposted thisBIGGEST NEWS IN TRAILERFARM HISTORY KLAXON! 📣 12 years ago, a new challenger entered the ring in games advertising. We started life as a small strike team cutting trailers for indie games out of Brighton. Spinning phones, slamming text titles and 2.5D imagery were the style of the time - and we carved our name. But we grew - a lot. We levelled up our crew and skills to offer services in cinematics, CG and got to help launch some of gaming's absolute greats, including; PUBG, Fall Guys, Two Point Hospital. Borderlands. Cool. We've never quite got over how lucky we are that this is our job. What an absolutely wild ride it's been. Oh…That’s right…been. Because (and here's the BIG news) from tomorrow, September 9th, TrailerFarm becomes part of something new. Our ‘not so little anymore’ company, has joined forces with our sister studios across the UK, US and Canada to become one awesome, unified, global creative and production team. And this is so good - we’re still the same trailer-obsessives you already know, with the same fixation on the craft, just with many more colleagues who share the love of what we do and we can flex a genuine global footprint to enable us to scale and respond like never before. We’re going to be Wildly Effective. Which means that this page is about to take its final bow. From September 9th, everything moves across to our new home - we'll be sharing exactly where very soon, so keep an eye out and follow along. To everyone who's been part of TrailerFarm, past and present: you built this thing. Thank you. And to our clients, from first-time indies to the AAA giants - thank you for trusting us to make the loud, shiny stuff alongside you - we’re still here, we still got you, we’ve just evolved. K - gotta go, we still got trailers to make. See you on the other side. 🚜
-
Ben Lavery shared thisIt is Saros release day finally! I am really lucky to share offices with our colleagues at ICHI Worldwide and the excitement here today in Holborn is at max (potential GOTY) Level! Our ICHI team helped translate Saros into a campaign that aimed to meet its audience, not just as a product, but as a feeling. To quote Senior Art Director on the campaign Samad Boughalam, "the launch trailer is one piece of a much larger journey, but it carries the same core idea that runs through everything: Resilience, transformation and the power of coming back stronger." Massive congrats Playstation and Housemarque.Ben Lavery shared thisCheck out our latest work with PlayStation! 👇 https://lnkd.in/eVjFhWgf
-
Ben Lavery shared thisMy prediction: rumours of GDC's demise have been greatly exaggerated. (Hoping this post doesn't age badly). No indulgence today, but it is a whole ten years since Dan and Tony kindly bought me a last-minute flight to my third GDC to help out with a few meetings for TrailerFarm. (Always grateful for the incredible journey you sparked, gents.) My colleagues at partner studios and I are actually rolling pretty deep this year. If you're thinking about any of these things while at GDC, message me and I will link you up with one of these incredible people from LA to Brighton via Montreal and London. * Getting a game to market * creating amazing cinematics * craft beer * integrated campaigns * margaritas * games user research * Foleys! * Cutscenes * sushi * key art * street art * VIDEO GAMES * Avoiding The Clift * IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES * Social Media and PR * (We're around the Moscone and we also have an expo space and meeting rooms at the W — with coffee and chairs if you're into that kind of thing.) See you there! Samantha Lester, Josh Denham, Tom Atkinson, Ryan Connolly, Niko DeMordaunt, Louis-Étienne Beaupré 🔜 GDC, Mark Thompson, Ollie Spraggs, George Goodall 🎮 🔜 GDC SAN FRAN , Jack Davis - Soon GDC, Sebastian Long, Abbas Hassan-hussein
-
Ben Lavery reposted thisBen Lavery reposted thisNext stop: GDC ✈️ We're as excited as ever to be heading to San Francisco for GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 next month. If you would like to meet up and chat all things glorious game marketing, send a DM to Benjamin Lavery or Josh Denham or drop us an email on info@bigfarmer.studio ✉️ We'll be touching down for GDC with the talented teams at our partner studios TrailerFarm, Fire Without Smoke, ICHI Worldwide, Maverick Media, gnet agency, KWM, and Player Research. We will be more than happy to join forces for a meeting (or a couple of beers). See you in San Francisco! 🌉 #GDC #GamesIndustry
-
Ben Lavery shared thisPantaloon need a Brand/Marketing Manager. Work with 'Jamin Smith!Ben Lavery shared thisJoin the misfits! Pantaloon is looking to bring a Brand/Marketing Manager on board to spearhead our original publishing efforts (and other stuff). This will likely skew more mid/junior, but casting the net wide at this point. Lots of latitude to touch various parts of the business and have real agency over the label's direction and growth, but strong creative instincts and a passion for the weirder/more eccentric side of the indie landscape a must. Remote but UK-only. JD & more info in comments. Feel free to share this with any brandy folks looking for their next role, or point them in my direction. #gamejobs #gamedev #marketing #hiring
-
Ben Lavery shared thisThanks for sharing this Charles Martin. Just what I needed to see on a bleak morning, commuting into the Big Smoke. It is a great reminder of what we have achieved despite playing the games industry services game on hard mode these last couple of years. Setting up a lockdown-desk-based-remote-mocap pipeline was just one of the ingenius moves from you and the team that enabled us to spin off our cinematics crew into Big Farmer. This gave us the resilience to weather the market conditions of the last few years with new products and services to offer. (It also helped having some incredible clients like Simplygon).Ben Lavery shared thisSometimes you just need a little bit of silly every now and then... During my time back at TrailerFarm, I had the pleasure of working on 3 awesome cinematics for Simplygon with a bunch of awesome people. This was during lockdown in the UK back in which was a very long time. Stuck at home we were finding ways of continuing production without physical interaction. This is where I discovered a Motion Capture Plugin for Unreal. After many hours of tweaking I was able to have a budget motion capture system in my home office with a Valve Index and couple of HTC Vive Trackers. During an era of doom and gloom, this was one of those little moments that made a few people smile :) Here I am celebrating around 2am getting it working...
-
Ben Lavery reacted on thisBen Lavery reacted on thisMy company has now made €757k from LinkedIn. My first business launched to 0 customers. I lost £15,000 on that launch and lay on my couch crying. A few years later, I hosted 150 games industry leaders on a company podcast. I learned how to bring people together, just like I did as a student ambassador. Then my grandparents passed away. I hadn't seen them in six years, and I didn't want to spend my life away from my family in UK. I handed in my notice and moved home to Cyprus. My first 12 pitches got 12 no's for my marketing agency. One of those people referred my first client. 2.5 years later, we helped 30+ founders launch on LinkedIn with Hivemind. Personally coached 100s more. Now my Fiance Anna and I have moved into the apartment she bought with her DJ money. None of this would have been possible without her support. Pretty much everyone reading this could benefit from sharing their story and lessons on LinkedIn. LinkedIn got me home to my family. I hope this shows you it can change yours too. What is 1 thing you learned along the way on LinkedIn?
-
Ben Lavery reacted on thisBen Lavery reacted on thisPINS!!! Guys, I finally did it, the Pin Board is full. Thanks to everyone who donated, stuck pins into my hands at shows. A truly global effort! Onto Pin Board 2: The Pinering
-
Ben Lavery reacted on thisBen Lavery reacted on thisLooks like Team17 are continuing their run of incredible announcements this year with another banger: I've been promoted to Senior Brand Marketing Manager! 🥳 🥳 🥳 There have been far too many exciting projects and highlights to share during my time here, and frankly I only managed to fit about half of them in the picture below. Next stop? More brilliant New Release campaigns.
-
Ben Lavery liked thisBen Lavery liked thisIt was so much fun to hang out with our Applied AI team in Chengdu, who have been bending the will of generative video models for the games we’re working on. It was my first time in China and I came to realise that I was carrying an outdated view of what was happening there. Thanks to Nico Vereecke and Jacqueline Clarke for the nudge. Oh and thanks to Tak Fung for being a first class host. https://lnkd.in/eP67rZZg
-
Ben Lavery reacted on thisBen Lavery reacted on thisThank you to our clients at Activision, Amazon Game Studios, Bethesda Game Studios, Bungie, and Riot Games for the amazing opportunities and partnership on the nominated work.
-
Ben Lavery liked thisBen Lavery liked thisFascinating couple of days at GTC with Jensen Huang, his incredible NVIDIA team and top partners. Many new friends. Great to witness the future in action in front of our eyes and to get the chance to play our part with our new Keywords Studios AI Solutions offering. It is not a coincidence that we share a strong ‘gaming DNA’ — the exact skills that are needed to make spacial intelligence, large scale simulations and physical AI real!
Experience & Education
Projects
-
Level Infinite Showcase - Virtual Production
-
Big Farmer produced Tencent's Gamescom showcase from concept to live action Virtual Production and post. Filmed at one of the largest LED volumes in Europe (our partners at Ten Dots, Sofia) we transported viewers to the scorched sands of Arrakis to take a deep dive into Dune: Awakening with Funcom’s Chief Creative Officer and to the apocalyptic wastelands of Exoborne to hear from Sharkmob’s Creative Director.
Other similar profiles
Explore more posts
Explore collaborative articles
We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
Explore More