Congratulations to Service Bus - winner of Best Animation at the Ekko Shortlist Award 2025

The Animation Workshop/VIA University College - 03 December 2025

Elmer Lødemel and his fellow students graduated from The Animation Workshop earlier this year with Service Bus, the animated short they created as their graduation project. This week, the whole team won Best Animation at the Ekko Shortlist Award 2025.

EKKO Shortlist awards

Service Bus winning Best Animation at EKKO Shortlist Award 2025.

What breathless stories hide behind a red button on a bus?

Quite a lot, it turns out, when you watch the humorous and action-packed animated short Service Bus by Elmer Lødemel and the team of fellow students who created the movie.

This week Service Bus was awarded Best Animation at the Ekko Shortlist Award 2025.  It is an animated short that invites you on a surprising journey. 

Rolf is on a long bus ride. With no drinks. If only he could get a cup of coffee. Then he notices the red button on the ceiling. What would happen if he pressed it? There’s no one on the bus to serve the coffee except the driver. Rolf presses the button. And that’s when the story really takes off.

We are so happy and proud that our film was even nominated! And then we actually won an award as well - it was incredible. We think every single one of the nominees alse deserved to win because the quality was high, and each of them had such a unique sense of storytelling.
What we wanted to do with our film was to share our humor in a medium we love. So to be seen and acknowledged for that means a lot to us, and we are very grateful.

Elmer Lødemel

We promise, you’ll never look at the red buttons on buses the same way again.

We caught up with Elmer Lødemel and asked what winning this award means to him and the whole team.

“We are so happy and proud that our film was even nominated! And then we actually won an award as well — it was incredible. We think every single one of the nominees also deserved to win because the quality was so high, and each of them had such a unique sense of storytelling. What we wanted to do with our film was to share our humor in a medium we love. So to be seen and acknowledged for that means a lot to us, and we are very grateful.”

Service Bus was created by:

  • Director, Painter, Animator, Storyboard Artist: Elmer Mikael Lødemel
  • Line Producer, CG Generalist, Background Painter: Niels Gram Riisgaard
  • Art Director, Animator: Matthew Ponquett
  • Generalist, Animator, Concept Designer: Simon Koch Pedersen
  • Animation Lead, Storyboard Artist: Sam Byrne
  • Technical Director, CG Generalist: Andreas Smidt
  • Storyboard Artist, Story Artist, FX Animation: Lea My Ib

Huge congratulations to the whole team behind Service Bus – we are very happy about this well-deserved recognition.

You can watch Service Bus right here

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