Camp Chaos: Since 1998
Founded in 1998, Camp Chaos is primarily a digital animation studio specializing in conceiving and overseeing the writing and production of shows, movies, and music videos for a variety of formats including cable television, broadband, mobile, and video-on-demand.
The core objective of Camp Chaos is to conceive new show ideas, then to orchestrate the production of those concepts. We strive to infuse our unique creative perspective into every production, whether it's animation and production services for an outside project or, of course, an original show concept.
Watch our show reels here.
Currently, Camp Chaos is creating and producing a roster of new shows for Heavy.com and IMG, including The Smallie Biggs Show, Dirk Greenhouse, The Superficial Friends, American Suck Countdown, Behind The Music That Sucks, numerous video game machinima shorts, and an all new Camp Chaos original Japanese anime series titled Kung Fu Jimmy Chow, created by Bob Cesca and John Christian Plummer. Check out this candid interview with Bob and John on Ain't It Cool News. (And before there was Jimmy Chow, there was this Camp Chaos anime short.)
Bob and Tara Cesca launched CampChaos.com in early 1998 as a showcase for some of the early Flash cartoons Bob was experimenting with in his free time while working at a post-production facility in Philadelphia.
By early 1999, Camp Chaos Entertainment, Inc. had become a fully functioning Flash animation production studio where it not only produced shows for other sites like Icebox, Dreamworks’ Pop.com and Eric Eisner’s Romp.com, but continued to create original shows. In early 2000, Metallica's Lars Ulrich sued Napster, and Camp Chaos ripped into him with a satirical short produced in two days called Napster Bad.
The worldwide success of that cartoon and the subsequent several spin-offs allowed Camp Chaos to expand into television and music videos. Napster Bad was the first in a nine year track record of viral video successes, including Metallicops, Spongebong Hemp Pants, The Superficial Friends, Dick Vitale Goes Apeshit, and many more.
CHECK IT: Napster Bad is featured in the critically acclaimed Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster. We're also credited with the first recorded use of the slang term "interweb" according to Wikipedia. Good for us.
From the success of Napster Bad, Camp Chaos pitched and sold its first television series: an animated sketch comedy show called Camp Chaos Presents VH1's ILL-ustrated. The series aired for two successful seasons and, during its run, ILL-ustrated boasted the highest ratings on the network in the coveted M18-34 demographic and routinely finished in the top 5 in its timeslot. It migrated to MTV2 where 13 of the 25 episodes are occasionally repeated with equally strong ratings. It currently can be seen on VH1's broadband site, The V Spot, as well as on YouTube.
Meanwhile, Camp Chaos has produced animated music videos for Everclear, Iron Maiden, Yes, Motley Crue, and two epic-length music videos for Meat Loaf.
Camp Chaos’s first live action project was a 30-minute documentary for Yes called Dreamtime, which appeared as a bonus feature on their YesSymphonic Live DVD. For that release, Camp Chaos also produced a live action video for the Yes song Don't Go from their Magnification album, as well as an array of animated segments for the concert film.
In 2001 and 2002, Camp Chaos produced an original live action mockumentary film called The War Effort. Filmed on an $8,000 budget with mostly improvised performances during the weeks and months after 9/11, the movie follows the lives of several patriotic Americans in a storytelling format not unlike The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The War Effort went on to win the Audience Award at the Nodance Film Festival in Park City; the Audience and Best Picture awards at the Delta Film Festival; and was the closing night film at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Bob Cesca and Camp Chaos have been featured on Ain’t It Cool News, The Howard Stern Show, CNN, BBC, Countdown With Keith Olbermann (MSNBC), The Insider entertainment news show, Fox Sports, The Hollywood Reporter, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Entrepreneur Magazine, USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Wired magazine, and many others.
In all, Camp Chaos has produced more than 600 animated shorts. That's a lot. We're also proud to report that the legendary comic book creator Stan Lee once chastised Bob for wearing short pants to an awards ceremony.
Bob Cesca also creates CG artwork and album covers. His portfolio is located here. Bob is also a popular columnist/blogger for Arianna Huffington's blog The Huffington Post.
Our Hollywood representation:
AGENT: Pete Franciosa and Jason Nadler at United Talent Agency. (310) 273-6700
ENTERTAINMENT LAWYERS: Allison Binder at Stone, Meyer, Genow & Binder. (310) 385-9300
Our contact information:
E-MAIL: studio@campchaosNOSPAM.com (remove "NOSPAM" from the address)
PHONE: (610) 376-4050
