Coates served in World War II as an army officer and became a film distributor in Asia before returning to England and beginning to produce animation.

BBC: Snowman producer John Coates dies

Nowadays, hybrid movies that merge live action with computer animation to produce three-dimensional digital maps of their real-life actors' body movements include lots of fine-grained information about expression.

ECONOMIST: Animation takes on a whole new reality

In June, Rovio acquired Finnish animation studio Kombo and hired the ex chairman of Marvel to produce a future feature film.

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