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3DTota l: Hello Patrick, could you tell us what it was about art that captivated you at such a young age?
Patrick : I have always loved drawing since I was young; I was drawing Mario Bros for all my friends,
and
I loved working on ‘arty’ stuff. When my father bought a VHS camera (when VHS was still trendy) and I realised that I could make stop-motion, I immediately started to get into recording stop-motion with my Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles by making them fight! Man, watching these characters move was so cool!
I really loved the whole experience. Later, I didn’t know what career path to follow and, after a year wasted in Human Sciences, I decided to get back to my passion: drawing. It was the best decision of my life!
What better job can I get? Making characters move is so cool! I never thought I could get a job which
would bring me so much in all its aspects. I love my work - it really is a passion.
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3DTotal : When you first started out, did you ever expect to be working for one of the leading games companies around today?
Patrick : Well, my progression in this area was never planned since I learned 3D in 1999-2000 and worked in the video games, television and cinema industries. I never had a goal as such, but the only one I did have was to learn various things by working on interesting projects with a good team. Working at Hybride was a real change in my career. I worked two years in Les Laurentides (north of Montréal) in the movie industry. During my second year at Hybride, I heard about Ubisoft coming to Québec. It was a good opportunity for me to go back there and work for a major company. I’ve stayed at Ubisoft for over a 1 years and a half and now, I’m currently working at a company called Beenox (Activision studio). I’m very lucky and glad to have worked in all these areas and I’m really happy now that I’m working at Beenox with such a great team, It’s a really cool job.
3DTotal : Having worked on a host of films, how would you compare working in the games industry to working on feature films?
Patrick : It is completely different. In the cinema industry, deadlines are reasonable for you to complete an animation, quality is the most important aspect and critics can be very harsh! It was in that industry that I learned how to use the best of my skills in making animations and to enhance them to the best of my ability. |
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In the games industry, deadlines are much tighter and the quality is less important in video games, however it is interesting to make such animations. It is hard to compare: in video games we usually work on cycles and on-the-spot animations, where as in films each shot is completely different. At the moment, I'm working on Bee movie game as a character animator. It's a really cool project for animation with great characters, a lot of cartoon animation with squash and stretch, great rigs... so that’s challenging. |
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3DTotal : Do you find it easier to animate a character in a game than to animate one in a feature film?
Patrick : It is definitely easier in video games, as the challenge is quite different to those in the cinema industry, where animations are often more complex and require a lot of research. Films require perfection, whereas in video games delays are so short to animate that quality becomes less interesting. Animations in video games are also often cyclic movements (loops), whereas in cinema everything is possible: there are no limits! It’s important to respect the constraints and make more with less, which is not always an easy thing to do but can be very challenging... It’s two different worlds. Bee Movie games are different than other project I’ve worked on in video games.
3DTotal : In working for Beenox, being a 3D teacher and being a proud new father, where do you find the time to fit in the creation of all these characters?
Patrick : I have become a father recently - 9 months to be precise - and everything is fine! I love my new life with my little family and this little girl in my life. Working at Beenox and teaching animation are more time consuming than my family
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life. It’s a fact that I have a lot less spare time than before, as my two jobs and family life keep me very
busy during the week. When it is a bit more relaxed at work and at school, with lectures, I have a fresh mind and time to work on personal projects. Since I used to spend quite some time on my personal projects over previous years, it is hard for me to slow down on producing personal projects now.
3DTotal : What are your main influences when creating your characters?
Patrick : I have various influences from everything that surrounds me in everyday life. My latest
character, FERN, is based on a man who lives close to Beenox. Seeing him every morning, I
decided to make my own version! It is a fact that the cartoonish style that I have developed was
inspired by films from Pixar or Pdi, as well as others - I can’t do without it. I love the style: characters
are expressive, and the design is simple yet perfect. Everyone loves these characters, and they are
the kind that inspire me, or at least the type of quality I would like to achieve in my own character design work. The Internet is also full of resources for artists, with many forums and galleries, which is beneficial for us all, enforcing us to move forward and to find new styles and subjects to explore.
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