5 Fast with Jacopo Armani

Five Fast is a segment of the blog in which fresh grads or people with brand new demo reels can show their work and give others a bit of insight into what they had to do to create the reel, and where they plan to go with it.

Today's Five Fast is from Jacopo Armani:

1. Tell folks a bit about your reel. What are they going to see when they click that shiny "Play" button?

"Being a King" is a fantasy tale about the “unbearable lightness of power”. The audience is invited to wear the costumes of Robb the Jester, who is going to try in first person what is it like to be a king. The results might not be those you'd expect. This is my first short which I produced at the Vancouver Film School over eight months of sweat and efforts. It is a one person effort, although heavily supported by my peers and mentors. VFS granted me a festival scholarship due to the high quality of my work.

2. What's the one thing on the reel you're most proud of?

I worked hard on characterization and interesting acting choices. Therefore the opening shot with Robb's casual walk is in my opinion what animation is about: telling the character's attitude and mood using only images.

3. What's the one thing on the reel you struggled the most with creating?

The Waltz was the hardest shot to animate for sure! The biggest problem for me was the lack of references. I started to nail down the shot when I got a hold of good references to get inspired (I'm not a dancer at all!). When I storyboarded those sequences I thought they would have been fun and easy to animate, but, man, how I was wrong! Not only the movement mechanics required to have a very good grasp of dancing, but also the tempo and quality of movement had to fit into the character's arc. In fact during the Waltz, Robb is slowly getting drawn into his own fantasy. Thus at that point he is still half jester-half king. So one of the problems was: how to show his Jester's nature intertwined with his pretending royalty? I opted to have him being a bit clumsy but at the same time cocky as only a King could be.

4. Why 3D Animation? What is it that appeals to you about this industry, and what made you head down this road in the first place?

I've had a passion for 3D Animation since I was a teenager. It was back in the '90s. I learned by myself several 3D software at that time. Then when I had to decide whether getting a degree or trying this fishy and not fully developed career in CG, I acted conservatively and chose the degree. I was young, and to a certain extent I was wrong. After almost ten years of education in Computer Engineering I got a Ph.D. but still I wasn't fully satisfied with my career. Something was missing. It was the
call for storytelling and moving images, my old passion. I got a very good offer from my university and again the same choice showed up in front of me: continuing on the promising academic career I had or trying this fishy, new career which was CG. This time I made the right decision, the one I wanted in the first place. I ditched everything, packed and headed to Vancouver to study Computer Animation, filling the
gap of ten years of missed education. To be honest when I made this decision I didn't know much about the industry, I just wanted to tell stories in animation. Now that I know more about it, I can say that the nomadic nature of this work is a big plus: one year you are in Vancouver, another one you are in Milan, another one you are in Paris, and so on. You keep moving. Secondly you meet a lot people truly passionate about what they are doing. Finally it's all about cooperation and team work. It doesn't matter whether you are the most talented artist in town, if you can't work with a team you are out of the business. Just because one person can do only so much. With a good team the quality and scope of a project become exponentially bigger.

5. What would be your absolute dream job?

I have a passion for non-cliche' storyline and acting choices. Thus, I would love to work for a studio where innovative and compelling stories drive technology choices and not the other way around. A studio that fosters its own artists giving them opportunities of growth and new challenges, and that listens to their inputs.

Thank you for this opportunity, and keep animating!


Jacopo's Reel:



Love the animation, Jacopo! The waltz may have been the toughest to animate, but it sure turned out nice!

Make sure you swing over to Jacopo's website to check out more of his fine work!

If you're in a similar situation to Jacopo, and have a demo reel you'd like to show off here, drop Dave a line at davesj[at]gmail[dot]com!