Interview - 3D4All

I did this interview for a Brazilian CG website in 2005. The original in Portuguese is still on their site, but I'm posting an English translation here too.

3D4ALL - Tell us about you and how you ended up hired by Blur Studio

Leo - I started working with animation in 1998, when I got hired by Multirio, a studio in Rio de Janeiro that created educational TV shows. Besides doing 3D, I used to help the 2D team with compositing, editing, etc. From there, I went to the News Department at Globo TV, where I had the opportunity to work for a few months on animations for a mascot named " Zé do Pulo", created by Sergio Yamasaki and animated by him, me and Marcio Bukowski. Despite the extremely tight deadlines and often having to work simultaneously on many projects, it was a great experience, and it was also the first time I worked animating a character over a long period of time. Then I went to Twister Studio, looking forward to working on different projects, where I worked for about a year with Marcelo Souza. Along the way, I did many freelance jobs, some with Studio Conseqüência, including the award winning music video "Segredos". I got invited to work at Blur in 2002, when Tim Miller saw my online portfolio (which was actually updated back then).

Before starting to work on this field, I studied Graphic Design at School of Fine Arts - UFRJ. It would have been a big waste of time, if it wasn't for the fact that I met "The Scoundrels" there, a group of friends interested, like me, in doing animation. Among them were Marcio Tatagiba, Renan Moraes, Ricardo Biriba, Miguel Angelo Rego, Sergio Yamasaki, Luciano Viana... most of them work with animation today, and I believe that is mostly thanks to us helping each other to learn it. It was easy to see all of us in the stairs of CCBB during the Anima Mundi Festival...

<EDIT-09-2009> Keep in mind there were very few animation schools back then, and I wouldn't have been able to afford the ones that existed anyway.

3D4ALL - How do you see Brazilian CG looking from outside?

Leo - The only thing that really bothers me in Brazilian CG is that usually the only way to make money with character animation is working with TV advertising, which isn't my favorite. But that's not only in Brazil, I have friends from Spain, France and Turkey that tell me their situation is similar. You either do TV ads or get yourself in risky projects that usually result in nothing. But there's no shortage of talents, no doubt about it, just look at a studio like Vetor Zero, exporting CG commercials to other countries.

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Interview - 3D Artist Magazine

As my first post, here's an interview I've done recently for a british magazine called 3D Artist. Enjoy, and feel free to comment at the end!

3D Artist: What is your current job and what are you working on right now?
Leo: I'm an Animation and Layout supervisor at Blur Studio in Venice, California. My current job is directing a campaign of 10 commercials for Pepperidge Farms' Goldfish Crackers. We are also doing a new short film whenever we find time to work on it.

3D Artist: What kind of course did you do at university and was that helpful in getting into the animation industry?
Leo: Animation schools weren't as popular and common as they are now when I went to university, so first I went to Film school, but then switched to Graphic Design. I always shaped my studies towards animation, though, so I ended up landing on an animation related job before I finished school. It was at a small company in Rio de Janeiro that did mostly 2D animation and had some amazingly talented artists who inspired me tremendously. At the same time, I made many friends in the University who shared the same interest in animation, which also helped me to build some momentum and made me more confident in the direction I wanted to follow.

3D Artist: For today’s generation of student’s, what is the kind of educational grounding they should be looking to undertake to get a first job in computer animation?
Leo: This has become some sort of cliché, but it is still true: they need to learn the basics. They need to learn timing, acting, staging...they need to branch out and watch films they would never watch before, read books that stimulate new ideas, study drawing, comics, videogames, even TV series. They need to know what makes a work of art timeless, but also what makes it work for today's audiences.

3D Artist: How did you get it and what was the motivation for getting a job at Blur Studio?
Leo: Actually, I wasn't looking for a job at the time, but a website posted a link to my demo reel and Tim Miller, one of the studio owners, happened to be looking for animators for an upcoming direct-to-dvd project that Blur was making for Disney. So he sent me an email asking if I wanted to work there, and I said "Sure!".

3D Artist: What software packages and tools do you use at Blur?
Leo: Mostly 3DS Max for layout, modeling and rendering, Softimage XSI for rigging, layout and animation, Mudbox and Zbrush for sculpting. We've also developed many pipeline tools that hold the whole studio together and help us be more efficient, with Python as the scripting language of choice.

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