Awards and Achievements

Though I am still young, I've had my fair share of contact and interactions with the professional world and different career options. Since I was 13, I've been enrolling myself with all types of cultural and artistic contests and activities. This was my first big step in my carrer, and helped me develop not only an intense critical outlook in my own personal work from a young age, but also helped me realize what the industry wants and how to target certain audiences in order to get more engagement. From then on, I spent most of my days working to perfect my craft and develop other skills that might be useful in the industry. At 17, I finished my first official animated short, though I had done many others in my free time, entitled "Creature of Habit". For years, this project was a source of inspiration to new students in the highschool I went to, and partook in several different animation contests with the school's help, where it spread my name around and allowed me to have direct contact with the industry and other artists. Through these contests and interactions, I learned a lot about the art world and created meaningful, impactful connections that would later become important in my career as a blooming animator.

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During my time in highschool, I was required to work on an intership for an extensive period of time. During this intership, I worked with Centro Multimeios de Espinho, where I edited videos, filmed and photographed different events, drew some promotional art and finally did an animation for their Christmas animated special based on the book "A Noite de Natal" from Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. This animation was in their late night christmas special screening at the facilities, and had an almost full room. It was enjoyed and praised by adults, kids, and other animators that took part in the event. This animation was also developed in around 1 month, with the editing help of my internship tutors.

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I got accepted into Escola Superior de Medias Artes e Design with an average of 19.3/20 and continued to perform academically well while in college. During this period, I took the time to experiment with different animation techniques (3D modelling, retopology, effect animation, tweening, puppet animation, stop-motion, etc), try out new fields of study within multimedia (programming, editing, sound recording, marketing, designing, team managment, etc.) and connect with not only other students but also teachers and artists that happened to cross my path during my three year degree. My presence in the school was well respected, and I finished my final project with a grade of 19/20. Afterwards, I was invited to teach a small class during Cinanima, do a presentation on the experience and talk about my thoughts on it during the award ceremony. During this time, I coordinated a class of around 18 highscool students, where I taught them how to animate using paper and a light table. They produced around 6 animations that ranged from 1-2 seconds in just under three hours, and learned how to work with the stop-motion program DragonFrame to photograph and edit their animations. After the classes were over, I helped prepare and edit the final video to be presented at the award ceremony. During this event, I spoke to the crowd about the experience of being a teacher, and was heavily praised afterwards for my speaking skills and public interaction.

 

As of now, I am coordinating a small team called "Gatos Pingados", that focuses on developing cultural activies with artistic significance, and other cinematic projects. In addition to this, I'm working on my own animated series entitled "Mona Lisas" and a new animation project, yet to be titled. Finally, I'm currently stationed as a mentor for Cinanima, teaching animation to different classes and age groups. With the knowledge I've gotten from my past experiences, I'm able to coordinate these teams properly and with an iron fist and projects so they can be successful.