Fawzi Zinade is the winner of the first boutique23 competition. We are pleased to present it here and he was kind enough to talk a bit about himself and the job he made to win the competition.
boutique23: Hi Fawzi, thanks for your time and congratulations for the Award. Tell us a bit about yourself… when did you start in animation?
Fawzi Zidane: I started 3d animation in 2003 in video games, and after several years in commercials and short movies as well.
B23: Did you learn by yourself or did you assist to a specific School?
FZ: I learned by myself, starting with a PC and a 3dsmax guide until I applied for a junior animator job in a video games company. They had me tested and here I am (good place, good time)
B23: Where are you currently working at?
FZ: I currently work at Unit Image http://www.unit-image.fr/
B23: Would you like to share some of your work with us?
FZ: Sure! Here you can see my demo reel:
B23: Do you spend some time during the year in doing your own animations out of work?
FZ: Yes I have some free time to work on personal projects, just for personal fun or for some animation contests as you know. Yet i think it’s always a good thing to have some breaks from time to time. For example traveling is a way for me to find inspirations.
B23: Is it important for you to do your own projects?
FZ: Yes, it is a way to express my creativity in my own way and also a kind of workshop for researches and improvements in my work.
B23: Where do you see yourself in the future? what would you like to do professionally?
FZ: I see myself in the broadcasting area, working as a animation supervisor on movies or animation teacher.
B23: About the winner animation you presented to boutique23… tell us a bit about the process and how long did it take you?
FZ: It took me a good month. Pure animation was the quicker part for me since i had a clear idea of what i wanted to show. I actually spent more time testing and learning about lighting, compositing and shading like the water than animating. Internet tutorials were a great source of knowledge for me.
B23: Do you have any work in progress such as story boards or animatics?
FZ: Yes i do have some story boards but only me can understand it … =)
B23: What was the main intention you had with the story?
FZ: I always thought that holidays were always too short, mostly when you have so much things to do and fun to have, so i wanted to show that in an funny way.
B23: How did you fin to work with our boutique23’s characters and assets? don’t hesitate to be completely honest, we’d like to know in case there’s anything you don’t like 🙂
FZ: I really appreciate the characters’ design, and i find quite easy to spot and play with their physical moods. It helped me a lot for the story.
It was a bit uncomfortable for me to deal with the “IK FK switch” i have to use it a lot , but on the overall the setups are quite easy to animate, it took me around two weeks of animation.
B23: Would you participate again in another B23’s competition?
FZ: For sure, you’ve got a lot of very inspiring characters and i am willing to have fun with some of them again.
Thanks a lot Fawzi for your time and your kind feedback, and we hope to see more of your animations very soon. Take care!
