Tomm Moore

Tomm Moore (born 1977) is an Irish animation director and co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, the Kilkenny studio that has become a global standard-bearer for hand-drawn 2D animation. His “Irish Folklore Trilogy” — The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and Wolfwalkers, which he co-directed — earned three Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature.

A response to AI

Moore frames Cartoon Saloon’s intensely handcrafted aesthetic as an intentional stand. Speaking in 2024, he described “a journey within the studio towards something that could only be made by hand, as a response to AI, as a response to CGI” — positioning the labour and imperfection of drawing as the whole point, not an obstacle to be automated away.

That commitment, he said, is about preservation: “We’re trying to keep the flame alive of making things in as artisanal a way as possible.” He argues that audiences can feel the difference over time — that hand-drawn classics retain “a timelessness” that early computer imagery lacks, even if technology “can trick people” in the moment.

Moore’s opposition is expressed through practice rather than polemic: a studio-wide bet that the visibly human-made will endure precisely because it cannot be generated.