Insights by the Pros with Animal Logic Senior Animator Francisco Massanet

Senior Animator and iAnimate Alumni Francisco Massanet share his stories and inspirations and how he succeeded in his animation journey.

"iAnimate showed me how to understand animation and to study movement to be able to bring it to life in 3D. Study how we move, was key to be successful with it!"

Francisco Massanet's love for cartoons became the passion that drives him to become an animator and keep this love alive since then. Bringing ideas to life and seeing a character with emotions is so rewarding for Francisco after all these years!

Francisco got hired 8 months ago but worked with them in Sydney back in 2019-2020. He is a Senior Animator at Animal Logic.

Alumni Interview

Animation Journey and Inspiration

iAnimate: Tell us a bit about your animation journey and throughout your time with us. Who or What inspired you to become an animator? How did you become an animator, and when did iAnimate become part of your journey?

Francisco: Very thing started with the old Disney movies, so can’t really tell you how many times I have watched, sword in the stone, and imagined myself being inside that movie, swirling, flying, and being chased around trees!

Everything started back in Spain but my career didn’t really start taking shape until I moved to Canada in 2010. At the end of 2014, I decided to take iAnimate and never looked after that.

I was able to find a job as an animator in movies, at the beginning of 2016 in VFX, at method studio in Vancouver. Worked on some really cool projects but my goal was to move into full ch movies. I got an offer to start at Cinesite Montreal, under Jason Ryan’s supervision, who would say no to that?

In 2018 I got a great offer from London to work on the one and only Ivan for Disney, and since I knew that book and I thought it was a very touching story, I decided to move back into VFX.

In 2019 once I finished in London, I got an offer from Cinesite Vancouver to work with the Addams family. It was a short-term contract but I already had the offer to move to Sydney, Australia to work with animal logic in Peter rabbit 2.

Once that was done, I moved back to Vancouver where I got to work in some really cool Minecraft cinematics, coming up soon! I was there for two years when work started to slow down as the project was coming to an end. I, then, got in contact with animal logic Vancouver, that we’re looking for animators to work on an unannounced Netflix movie.

iAnimate: Can you tell us more about your role and responsibilities?

Francisco: As a senior animator, I’m responsible to bring to life the director's ideas by interpreting storyboards and 3d animatics or previs.

Once I’m assigned to a shot or sequence of them. I will then study what needs to happen with these characters, what’s the idea behind the story, and what the director is trying to express with storyboards mostly. Once I show the first pass to the supervisor, my responsibility is to interpret their notes and make the necessary adjustments to my shot to show it again.

Then it’s shown to the directors where I would get another set of notes to address to make sure the idea is expressed as clearly as possible. My work is in part to understand all those sets of notes and implement them in your work to make it fit in the movie, better and with the director's vision.

As a senior animator, I need to make sure to address notes properly on 1st try and be as fast as possible with them. Usually, senior people would get harder shots because of the experience and it’s to be expected to finish on an established ETA. Also as a senior, I’m always willing to give advice to whoever needs/wants. Sharing your experience may make someone else work faster or better, who knows?

iAnimate: What do you think it was about your demo reel or interview that got you the job?

Francisco: I know my reel strength was my body mechanics. It’s always been all that I got from practice and spending lots of hours in front of iAnimate assignments. I got my first job because of a panther assignment from course #2 as they needed an animator to work on some horses. Obviously, all my other reel work helped, but having a good variety and good body mechanics made it for me.

After more than 8 years on this, my reel is still only 1 minute. I would say, choose your best of the best even if it’s a bit shorter than just throwing everything in there.

[Francisco Massanet]

Animation Lessons and Growth

iAnimate: How did iAnimate help prepare you for the industry? What were the most important things you learned at iAnimate?

Francisco: Body mechanics! That made it for me. iAnimate showed me how to understand animation and to study movement to be able to bring it to life in 3d. Studying how we move, was key to being successful with it!

iAnimate: What is the most challenging shot you’ve ever animated, and why did you succeed at the shot?

Francisco: Animate and place over 50 characters running, avoiding obstacles from the environment and making sure there was a proper choreography even with all those characters around, driving your eye to the proper screen area where a specific action was happening.

I had to take them one by one, one at a time… thinking about the final result would have a bit of anxiety and was a bit overwhelming, as there was also a bit of a tight deadline. So I went one by one starting from what was more visible and then moving into secondary characters.

[Francisco's Current Reel]

You can reach Francisco via:

iAnimate: Do you have any demo reel or interview advice you can share with animators on the job hunt?

Francisco: I believe I already shared some of them but, for your reel. Only choose the best of the best, is better to have a short reel with great animation, than a very long one with some good and lots so good assignments in there.

And for the job hunt, don’t take it personally when recruiters don’t reply and keep applying for open positions. Sometimes hiring process gets put on hold and once they start again, they don’t necessarily go to the old applications but instead, they open the position again on social media. Webs like LinkedIn are an incredible resource for that.

Interview advise, I’ve always been really honest about what I can or can’t do, but I have always shown dedication and will to push myself with the hardest shots I could get. If you don’t push yourself, you won’t get better at it.

iAnimate: What other advice do you have for current or future iAnimate students?

Francisco: Put in as many hours as you can now! Once an instructor said to me, if I can make it, anyone can make it. I will only add one more part to that… and that would be if you put in the time. You should see my frost assignments… don’t give up, you’ll get what you put in!

Animation Career Advice & Tips

iAnimate: If there’s one animation tip or technique you’d share with someone wanting to animate in a feature film, what would it be?

Francisco: Start from references, keep an eye on all the small details that will make your animation that much better. Small details are what take the longest to make it look right. Pay attention to them and don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from people you respect as animators. This is super important, because if you start asking everyone, you will have too many directions to hit, and not necessarily all of them will be good.

iAnimate: Given that there’s so much to learn, how would you recommend a brand new animator start their training?

Francisco: Start with small assignments, like focusing on one arm dropping and how will that move. Or a sit-to-stand exercise, instead of trying to start with the best acting shot of your reel.

iAnimate: What makes a great animator or an animator a studio would hire?

Francisco: Everyone can learn how to move things from point A to point B, but how you move them in between is what can make you really stand up with your supervisors. Being able to be creative within the movie's limits and be able to surprise with that it’s a good asset to have for sure.