Gabriel Gomez: From Watching Animated Films To Creating Them

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Gabriel Gomez grew up during the so-called “Disney Renaissance,” with films like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Tarzan as his first major influences. He would later discover Japanese anime, which meant seeing Hayao Miyazaki’s unparalleled artistry for the first time in his life. In this industry, watching a Studio Ghibli film is almost like a rite of passage. It is the ultimate goal, and it does an extraordinary job of inspiring the artists we like to write about. In our interview with him, Gabriel told us that…

Catch-up Interview With Florian Aupetit

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After our first interview in the summer of 2016, Florian Aupetit’s life would change completely. He had two great job offers lined up in September of that same year. One of them asked him to be an art director on a feature film, and the other was The SPA Studios inviting him to be the lighting supervisor on Klaus (2019). Sadly, even though he loved what art directors Szymon Biernacki and Marcin Jakubowski were telling him about Klaus, he rejected it. Accepting that job would mean moving to Madrid by January 2017, whereas the feature film project would allow him to comfortably…

Will Santa Claus Bring Traditional Animation Back?

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The SPA Studios is planning to bring traditional 2D animation back with Klaus, an animated feature film by Sergio Pablos. It’s important to note that Pixar and DreamWorks Animation have been dominating the animation industry with computer animation as opposed to hand-drawing the frames like Klaus, so this is an interesting development for this industry. Szymon Biernacki is one of two art directors—working alongside Marcin Jakubowski to develop the art style for the feature—and he is the one we are talking to today.