Stuart Sumida will present the range of challenges presented to animators and visual effects artists, from realistic, to stylized, to highly caricatured charters and how real-life anatomy and biomechanics can help to inform each of these, but in different ways. Drawing from his extensive filmography, he will discuss topics ranging from the realism ofLife of Pi to the physics of flight mechanics in How to Train Your Dragon, to the caricature of Zootropolis.
Ludo Bouancheau will talk about how animators can get inspired and use real life observations and knowledge into their work using his own experience and different situations he came across through his career in feature animation. He will share some examples from different projects he worked on like Abominable and Puss in boots the last wish, focusing on ways to blend believability and creativity in performances and create unique characters.
Stuart Sumida
Dr. Stuart Sumida is a paleontologist at California State University, San Bernardino. He has published three books and more than 90 journal articles, specializing in biological transformations that took place, such as the adaptation of vertebrate animals to life on land. He is also one of the most in-demand anatomical consultants in the entertainment industry, having worked on more than 60 feature films, including Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, the first and last Harry Potter films, all three How to Train Your Dragon films and Puss in Boots Last Wish for Dreamworks, Life of Pi, Ratatouille, and Soul for Pixar and many more.
He has also worked as a consultant for video game animators such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Hollywood's Academy Award-winning Zootropolis, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Dreamworks' Abominable. He has also worked on a multitude of television projects, including helping to develop the animal characters in the latest season of the HBO/BBC series His Dark Materials and the children's television show Jane for Apple TV. He has also served as an anatomical and biomechanical consultant for a large yeti-style audio-animatronic creature for the Expedition Everest attraction at Walt Disney World in Florida.
Ludovic Bouancheau
In the industry for 15 years, he worked as an animator on many feature films like Megamind, Puss in Boots and Home and as a supervising animator on Kung fu Panda 3, The Boss Baby, Abominable and Trolls World Tour. He most recently worked on the academy awards nominated feature Puss in Boots the last wish as a Head of Character Animation.
He was nominated to the VES Awards in 2012 for his work on the character of Puss in Boots and to the Annie Awards in 2017 for his reel on Kung Fu Panda 3.
He gave master classes about acting and workflow at DreamWorks studios, Gobelins Summer schools in Paris and Hong Kong, and at CTN expo among others.
