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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1496181
How did you get involved in animation and filmmaking? I had the privilege to grow up on the film set and in the editing room, as my father is a film director and my mother is a film critic. Spending my preschool days watching them editing celluloid film on the old motion picture device Moviola was fascinating to me. I liked watching the filmstrip moving back or forward and how the picture was becoming alive in a small viewer that magnifies the film frame. In university, I was surprised to discover animation was my favorite tool to express my ideas. Moreover, I was studying sculpture in the class of Erwin Wurm and expected I would rather work with a hammer or epoxy resin, than to draw frame by frame with a pen. But one should embrace some surprises. Can you tell us about ‘Cornucopia,’ the animated film you directed? “Cornucopia” is the last short animation film I worked on. The film questions human insatiability and is inspired by an ancient, 5200 years old ceramic bowl, found in today’s Iran. Some say it is “the first animation” yet discovered. Seven sequential images of a goat jumping and eating the leaves of a tree are painted on the ceramic surface. If you rotate the vase – the goat becomes alive. This goat is also one of our main protagonists. Together with my animation partner Ani Antonova we decided to try a technique that was new to us: animating with Indian ink on paper. We painted frame by frame the scenes of the film, we digitized the drawings and mapped them on the surface of a 3D object using KeyShot. We were really impressed by the lifelike and crisp picture quality that KeyShot delivered. Since the film ends with a live scene with real actors, we could set the light matching the KeyShot Environment. “We decided to try a technique that was new to us: animating with Indian ink on paper. We painted frame by frame the scenes of the film, we digitized the drawings and mapped them on the surface of a 3D object using KeyShot. We were really impressed by the lifelike and crisp picture quality that KeyShot delivered. ”