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Studio AKA Director Kristian Andrews recently created three animated inserts for ITV’s new political drama series The Hack. The series explores the notorious 2011 UK phone-hacking scandal, which ultimately led to the downfall of Rupert Murdoch’s publication News of the World.

Directed by Lewis Arnold, and Produced by Abi Bach, The Hack is a British true-crime television series written by Jack Thorne and Annalisa Dinnella. The stellar ensemble cast, led by David Tennant, features Toby Jones, Robert Carlyle with Steve Pemberton, Eve Myles, Dougray Scott, Lisa McGrillis and Adrian Lester, amongst others.

For the project, Andrews brought to life three illustrations by acclaimed political cartoonist Ben Jennings, transforming them into six-second animated sequences. Each piece appears superimposed onto newspapers and magazines within the live-action scenes, visually reflecting the turbulent mental state of Tennant’s character.

See the animations in context when The Hack airs on ITV. Watch the trailer HERE

“In the spirit of Ben’s satirical work, we wanted to really exaggerate the squashy, stretchy performance of these characters,” says Andrews.

Working single-handedly, Andrews animated Jennings’s detailed illustrations using Moho software. The project provided a unique opportunity to collaborate with Live-Action Director Lewis Arnold, who had a clear vision for how animation could enhance the show’s narrative, and with Jennings himself, whose sharp political wit informed the tone of the sequences.