You BETTER ASK Cathal about a day in his life. It would be a night in my life at the moment. I sit in a room on my own and listen to a computer hum and start rocking back and forth. It's not very interesting," says Darragh O'Connell of Brown Bag Films, talking about his life as an animator.

His business partner Cathal Gaffney interrupts: "There is no such thing as routine." Darragh adds: "Yeah, I'd say that no two days have ever been the same for us, and thankfully, we're extremely busy at the moment."

"The nature of this business is famine and feast," Cathal explains. "At the moment it's feast - we're up to our ears in work. "We normally start very early in here. I usually work from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Well, that's the standard. We also work 12-hour days or more and sometimes seven-day weeks. For the first 15 minutes, though, we just have a cup of coffee and a chat, go through what has to be done and try to get a head start on the day. I check emails and turn on the computers, make coffee for the others and do all the humdrum stuff like that.

"At the moment we're finishing up some work for The King and I for Rich Animation and doing a couple of commercials. We're working on a six-minute film called The Last Elk - it's a Frameworks-funded project that charts the life of the last Irish elk and sugests how and why they died out. It's set to music.

"We're excited about that. We're also working on an animated sitcom for adults called The Brothers. There'll be 13 half-hour episodes and it has a slight Friends-twenty-something vibe, but it's very different. Ha ha! Our series Bar Stool is being shown on @last TV on Network 2 on Monday nights.

In this business, routine is a fantasy. We could set out our agenda for the day, but all of a sudden somebody will ring up and say: `Listen, we need that NOW' and your whole day is turned upside down. And lunch is a notional thing.

Right now, I'm working with the layout guy and storyboard man on various projects. I go through the script every day and decide what needs to be done. I try to spend about an hour or so doing that and seeing what animation can be re-used from earlier episodes. "I check stuff on the line tester, check on drawings as they're being done. If I'm looking after a project, I'll be approving the work, although that's really Darragh's job. He's really in charge of the art work. "I work primarily as a producer. I handle the accounts and get work in. Darragh is more of a director and oversees projects from an artistic perspective. Having said that though, there's a lot of cross-over. That's because of the workload as well. As we're so busy, we have to double up and share responsibility.

"Darragh and I are partners. We've known each other since we were at Ballyfermot Senior College and we genuinely have good fun in here. It is a bit of a laugh and that's why we're doing it. We enjoy it. This is the kind of place I would like to work in.

"We started off being creativity first and business second. Learning about the business side of things was a necessity. We've got the hang of it at this stage. We're still very, very creative - ultimately, that's where we're at."