Nexus Studios

Nexus Studios
Information
Type	Private
Industry	Animation, film production, interactive and XR production
Founded	2000
Founder	Charlotte Bavasso, Chris O'Reilly
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Notable Personnel	Chris O'Reilly (co-founder, chief creative officer), Charlotte Bavasso (co-founder, executive producer)
Products	Animated films and commercials, AR apps, VR and mixed reality experiences
Website	https://nexusstudios.com

Nexus Studios is an independent animation, film and interactive production company based in London, founded by Charlotte Bavasso and Chris O'Reilly. Its legal entity is Nexus Productions Limited, and the studio was known as Nexus Productions in its early years. The studio built its reputation on animated commercials, music videos, title sequences and short films, including the Academy Award-nominated short This Way Up.

In 2009 the company launched an interactive division, Interactive Arts, to make augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and other technology-led projects. Its XR work includes the Google Spotlight Stories VR shorts Rain or Shine and Back to the Moon (the latter nominated for a 2018 Emmy), the BBC's Peabody-winning Civilisations AR app, Headspace XR for Meta Quest, Kung Fu Panda: School of Chi for Apple Vision Pro, and Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema for Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S.

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Company registration and officers (Companies House), founding history, awards (Academy, Emmy, Peabody, BAFTA Children's) and every listed XR project's credits, dates and prices checked against the cited sources. About review dates.

History

Founding and animation work

Bavasso and O'Reilly set out to build an animation studio aimed at adult and family audiences rather than focusing on children. Writing in November 2008, Animation World Network (AWN) described the London company as founded ten years earlier (elsewhere in the same article, "more than a decade ago") and said its first commission was animated content for the video screens of U2's PopMart world tour. The current company, Nexus Productions Limited (company number 04117167), was incorporated in England and Wales on 30 November 2000 under the name Everychance Limited and took the Nexus Productions name on 18 December 2000. Bavasso and O'Reilly were appointed its directors on 7 December 2000 and remain directors. The company's registered business activity is motion picture production.

During the 2000s Nexus produced the title sequences of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can and the 2006 The Pink Panther, and by 2008 it operated a studio of more than 100 seats in London. This Way Up, an eight-minute short by the Nexus directing duo Smith & Foulkes (Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes), was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 81st Academy Awards. The studio's Honda "GRRR!" commercial won a Cannes Grand Prix in 2005, and it later won two further Grand Prix awards for work for Chipotle.

Interactive division and expansion

Nexus launched its interactive division, Interactive Arts, in 2009. By 2017 the division, then headed by Luke Ritchie, had made interactive work for Burberry, Google, The New Yorker, IBM, Apple and the White House, and since 2013 it had been Google's partner on the Made with Code initiative, which encourages girls to explore computer science. In November 2017 Nexus Studios opened an office in the downtown Los Angeles arts district, led by executive producers Luke Ritchie and Diego Rosner, with O'Reilly continuing as executive creative director across the studio's output. In 2024 Headspace described Nexus as a studio with locations in Los Angeles, London and Sydney.

The company's website now divides its work into film (animated features, series, shorts, music content and commercials) and "experience design", which it says covers XR, spatial computing, digital products, gaming, theme park rides, live immersive shows and museum and art installations. The site footer still carries the Nexus Productions Ltd. name. As of 2025 the studio lists O'Reilly as co-founder and chief creative officer, and D&AD lists Bavasso as co-founder and executive producer.

XR work

The table lists XR projects that Nexus made or co-produced and that can be confirmed from published sources. The studio's own portfolio includes further AR filters, brand activations and installations that are not listed here.

Year	Project	Partners or client	Format	Notes
2016	1600	Obama administration	AR	An AR experience of a year inside the White House
2016	Rain or Shine	Google Spotlight Stories	Interactive 360-degree VR short	Directed by Felix Massie; released 17 November 2016
2017	The Gruffalo Spotter	Magic Light Pictures, Forestry Commission England	Mobile AR	Marker-triggered character animations in 26 forests; BAFTA Children's Awards nominee (Interactive)
2017	Hotstepper	In-house	Mobile AR	Real-time character animation wayfinding app for iOS, released with the Los Angeles office launch
2018	Civilisations AR	BBC Arts, BBC R&D	Mobile AR	Companion to the BBC Two series Civilisations; Peabody Futures of Media award (Mobile)
2018	Back to the Moon	Google Doodles, Google Spotlight Stories, Google Arts & Culture, Cinémathèque Française	VR and 360-degree film	First VR/360 Google Doodle; 2018 Emmy nominee, Outstanding Original Interactive Program
2018	U2 eXPERIENCE	U2 creative director Willie Williams, Treatment, Lusional	Mobile AR	The band's first AR app, triggered by the tour's LED wall
2018	Notable Women	Rosie Rios, Google Creative Lab	Mobile AR	Overlaid portraits of 100 American women on US banknotes; built with Unity and Vuforia
2018	Little Red the Inventor	Within (Wonderscope app)	iOS AR story	Directed by Tuna Bora; produced by Nexus Studios
2019	Big Bang AR	Google Arts & Culture, CERN	Mobile AR	Narrated by Tilda Swinton; the App Store listing names Nexus Studios as production partner
2020	Changdeok ARirang	SK Telecom, Google, Cultural Heritage Administration, Seerslab	5G mobile AR tour	AR guided tour of Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul
2021	Eternals: AR Story Experience	Marvel Studios	iOS AR	Nexus states it created the experience
2024	Headspace XR	Headspace, Meta	VR and mixed reality app for Meta Quest	Released 6 March 2024
2024	Kung Fu Panda: School of Chi	DreamWorks Animation, NBCUniversal	Mixed reality app for Apple Vision Pro	Directed by Patrick Osborne
2025	Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema	Meta, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse	VR cinema app for Meta Quest 3 and 3S	Released 9 October 2025 in the US

Google Spotlight Stories

Rain or Shine was an animated short for Google Spotlight Stories directed by Nexus director Felix Massie. It follows a character named Ella who brings rain wherever she goes on a summer day in London, and viewers can look around the 360-degree scene to find side stories. It was released on 17 November 2016 on YouTube 360 and in the Google Spotlight Stories app for iOS and Android. A Kidscreen Summit speaker profile of Ritchie described it as a 360-degree VR short premiered by Interactive Arts in 2016.

Back to the Moon, co-directed by Fx Goby and Google Doodle artist Hélène Leroux and produced by Nexus Studios, was a tribute to the filmmaker Georges Méliès. It went live on 3 May 2018, the anniversary of the release of Méliès's 1912 film The Conquest of the Pole, and became the first VR and 360-degree interactive Google Doodle. The project brought together Google Spotlight Stories, Google Arts & Culture and the Cinémathèque Française. Viewers could watch it in the Spotlight Stories app on phones, Google Cardboard or Daydream, or as a 360-degree video on YouTube. According to Leroux, production took about six months. The Television Academy nominated it for Outstanding Original Interactive Program at the 2018 Emmy Awards, crediting Leroux, Goby, Google Doodles, Google Spotlight Stories and Nexus Studios. Nexus says an AR version was also released through the Spotlight Stories app, and that it is the only Google Doodle made in VR, AR, 360-degree video and 2D animation.

Mobile AR

The Gruffalo Spotter, made with Magic Light Pictures for the Forestry Commission England, let families follow forest trails and point a phone at footprint markers to trigger short animations of characters from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's The Gruffalo in 26 forests. BAFTA nominated it in the Interactive category of the 2017 British Academy Children's Awards, crediting Magic Light Pictures and Nexus Studios.

Civilisations AR was released in 2018 as a companion to the BBC Two series Civilisations. Nexus Studios built it with BBC Arts and BBC Research & Development. Users place museum objects such as the Rosetta Stone and an Egyptian mummy in their own space and examine them with an X-ray mode and a "restore" view. The Peabody Awards gave the app, made with Nexus Studios and 30 UK galleries and museums, a Futures of Media award in the Mobile category for 2018.

Changdeok ARirang was an AR tour of Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul. SK Telecom launched it on 28 July 2020 with the Cultural Heritage Administration, Google, Nexus Studios and the Korean AR/VR company Seerslab. SK Telecom installed twelve 5G base stations at the palace and ran the service on its 5G edge cloud. A mythical guardian character, Haechi, guides visitors to 12 sites. An "at home" version followed in August 2020 for people who could not visit during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Skwigly, the experience used volumetric capture, cloud anchors (a visual positioning system for AR), Google ARCore and Google Cloud. Ritchie, then Nexus's head of interactive arts, said ARCore let the studio build a guide that knows its position to within centimeter accuracy.

Nexus says it created Marvel Studios' Eternals: AR Story Experience for iPhone and iPad, released in 2021 ahead of the film Eternals, using volumetric capture of actress Lia McHugh as Sprite from more than 100 camera angles. Industrial Light & Magic's own account of the app names Marvel Studios, ILM and Disney Studios Content's Technology Innovation Group as its collaborators and does not mention Nexus.

Headset apps

Headspace XR was developed by Nexus Studios and published by Headspace for Meta Quest. It launched on 6 March 2024 for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest Pro at a one-time price of US$29.99. The app mixes guided meditations led by Headspace teachers Dora Kamau and Kessonga Giscombe with breathing exercises, movement, mood tracking and games, in single-player and multiplayer modes. In May 2024 Meta reported that Headspace and Nexus had added performance improvements, interface changes and subtitles, and that the price had dropped to US$19.99.

Kung Fu Panda: School of Chi is a free mixed reality app for Apple Vision Pro, published on the App Store by NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Its listing says it was developed by Nexus Studios and directed by Patrick Osborne. In it, Po teaches users meditative moves, which they copy by following his lead with their whole body. Version 1.0 is dated 28 March 2024. Nexus reports that the app won the Emerging Technology Award at the Digital Entertainment Group's DEG EnTech Awards.

Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema was announced during Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at Meta Connect 2025. Nexus Studios developed it with Meta, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse. Meta's announcement credited its partnership with Universal Pictures, Nexus Studios and Blumhouse. The app was released in the US on 9 October 2025 for Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S. It is free, and M3GAN and The Black Phone are rented in-app for US$5 each. The films play in 2D inside custom VR environments, with effects such as shattering glass and explosions extending into the room and Dolby Atmos spatial audio. UploadVR wrote that, as far as it was aware, this was the first time a VR app had legally and officially delivered such effects for full-length films.

See also

• Within
• Volumetric capture