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Booking from December

About — the director and the bench Seagate, Dundee

One director, a trusted bench

I’m Marika Drever. I grew up in Arbroath drawing flip-books in the margins of tide tables, studied animation in Dundee, and spent eight years at broadcast and branding studios before starting Rillmark.

Rillmark is named after the marks the tide leaves in the sand: small, exact patterns made by something moving. That’s the job. I direct every project myself, from the first index card to the final master, and bring in specialists when an idea needs deeper craft than one pair of hands can give it.

I work with broadcasters, cultural organisations, charities, independent bands and the odd fintech, mostly in Scotland, sometimes much further away.

An illustrated portrait of Marika Drever with a short dark bob, headphones round her neck and a pencil behind her ear
Marika at the lightbox, drawn by Ishbel Moncur

How I work

Three rules I don’t break

  1. 01

    Every move has a verb

    If we can’t say what something does, surfaces, gathers, snaps, it doesn’t move yet.

  2. 02

    Paper before pixels

    Boards on index cards and an animatic come first, so changes are cheap while they still matter.

  3. 03

    Leave a usable thing

    Project files, templates and notes, organised so your team or the next studio can pick them up.

The bench

People I bring in

Freelancers I’ve worked with for years. They join when the idea needs them, and you see their names in the credits and in the estimate.

    The studio

    Second floor, Seagate, looking at the Tay

    The studio is a converted jute merchant’s office, two minutes from the station. There’s a lightbox, a sound-treated corner for voice sessions, a 65-inch grading screen and a long table for clients who like to watch the boards go up.

    Address
    Studio 3, 61 Seagate
    Dundee DD1 2EG
    Hours
    Monday to Thursday 9:30–17:30
    Friday 9:30–14:00
    Getting here
    5 minutes’ walk from Dundee station. Cycle stands in the close.
    Access
    Lift to the second floor; step-free from the street.
    Illustration of the studio window: a desk with a monitor and lightbox, and through the glass the river, the rail bridge and hills beyond
    The view across the Tay from the studio desk

    Kit

    What it’s made with

    Industry-standard tools, so your files open anywhere after handover.

    Software

    • After Effects2D, comp
    • Cinema 4D and Redshift3D
    • TVPaintCel
    • Blender3D tests
    • DaVinci ResolveEdit, grade
    • FigmaBoards, UI

    In the studio

    • Workstation, 2 GPUsRender
    • Calibrated grading monitorRec. 709
    • Pen display and a lightboxDrawing
    • Rostrum camera standStop motion
    • Two VHS decksArchive
    • Index cardsMany

    Recognition

    Shortlists, juries and talks

    • AwardNominated, title design of the year, Tayside Screen Awards, for The Lowlight Hours
    • AwardShortlisted, animated video of the year, Tayside Screen Awards, for Paper Lanterns
    • JuryAnimation jury, Morrowfield Film Festival short-film competition
    • Talk“Give motion a verb”, Tactile Futures conference
    • TeachingVisiting tutor, final-year animation studio, two terms a year