Pixar was cool. ILM was something else entirely.

Issue #94 | April 12th, 2026

Hello Reader 👋

So this week something happened that took me way, way back.

A close friend of mine is the CEO of a pretty big visual effects company. The kind that works with Netflix, Marvel, Disney. The big ones. And we've been talking about me potentially joining the team in a management role to help develop the studio.

Nothing is locked. We're still in discussion mode. But the conversation alone sent my brain on a trip.

She asked me something like, "With everything you're already doing on a daily basis, wouldn't it be frustrating to start managing a studio?" And that question just unlocked a flood of memories I hadn't thought about in a long time...

I'm maybe 12 years old. My parents have already left for work. I'm alone in our tiny apartment. I'm not allowed to watch TV before school. But I'm sitting right below the set with my finger on the on/off switch, ready to click it off the second I hear the front door. Just in case mom or dad forgot something and came back.

On the screen, a show on Channel 5 about visual effects called "Le cinéma des effets spéciaux". I don't remember exactly what it was, probably some Star Wars or blockbusters making-of or a documentary about practical effects. I remember they showed The Dark Crystal sometimes, the puppets, the sets. I was absolutely mesmerized.

That was the seed. Watching something I wasn't supposed to watch, one finger on the kill switch.

Fast forward ten years. I'm living in the United States, watching the Lord of the Rings behind-the-scenes extras on repeat. Not the films. The making of. Over and over and over. I bought this incredible book called The Invisible Art about the history of matte painting, how entire worlds were built from nothing. And I thought: that's what I want to do. Creating worlds. Making things that don't exist look like they always have.

When I graduated from Animation Mentor, I got to visit three studios in the San Francisco area. PDI (Pacific Data Images bought..and killed by DreamWorks at the time.😢), Pixar (they were in crunch mode on Ratatouille), and ILM.

Pixar was cool. PDI was cool.

But ILM?

Walking through the Presidio, crossing the bridge between buildings, seeing Indiana Jones' whip on display, the massive Dracula painting on the wall, Spiderwick Chronicles and the first Transformers on everyone's monitors…

I was with a couple of friends. After we walked out, none of us talked for a good 25 minutes. We were just… processing. It wasn't a studio tour. It was walking through a museum of cinema history. I was completely blown away.

Now there's a real possibility I could work as one of the managers of a studio like that. With my best friend. Someone I've always known I'd work with again because we share the same values, the same energy, the same standards.

And beyond the excitement, what I love about it is the stability. Not jumping from one client to the next. Having a steady foundation that lets me build Animator Now! exactly the way I want to, with the time and space to do it right.

We're not forcing anything. We never have. But the timing feels right for both of us.

I'll have more Animator Now! updates next week because there are some pretty amazing ones cooking. But for now, that's where my head is at.

Alright, let's get into the rest of this week's issue. 🔥

The Spotlight

If the name Frederic Siegel sounds familiar, it should. We spotlighted his film Honour a few issues back, the one animated entirely in shades of orange that blew my mind. Well, this week I watched another one of his films and I didn't even realize it was his until the credits rolled. And honestly? That's the highest compliment I can give an artist.

The premise is deceptively simple. Ruben is heading to work. He walks out the door and immediately wonders: did I lock the front door? That's it. Could have just walked back and checked. Done. Five seconds.

But no. Frederic Siegel takes that tiny spark of anxiety and turns it into a full-blown visual explosion. Every worst-case scenario materializes inside Ruben's head and you get to watch all of them unfold. The stove is on. The window is open. Animals are getting in. The whole thing spirals into increasingly absurd territory and the further it goes, the more brilliant it gets.

What really hooks me about this film is where it sits stylistically. It's not quite traditional 2D animation. It's not quite motion design. It lives in that beautiful in-between space where the graphic sensibility of design meets the storytelling rhythm of animation. The way scenes transition into each other, the way the imagery morphs and flows, there's a strong motion design logic at play here that makes the whole thing feel incredibly fluid and modern.

And just like Honour had its monochromatic orange, Ruben Leaves has its own committed color statement: blues and yellows. The palette is bold, restrained, and absolutely stunning. Every frame is a poster. You can feel that same design-first instinct that I loved about Honour. There's a real visual consistency across Siegel's work, and discovering it by accident, before even seeing the credits, just confirms what I always feel about great directors: you recognize the hand before you know the name.

The sound design and music are inseparable from the experience. Nico Kast composed the score, and Thomas Gassmann handled the sound design and mix. Together they create this escalating tension that mirrors exactly what's happening inside Ruben's anxious mind. Every creak, every rattle, every little sonic detail adds another layer of paranoia. It's meticulous work.

Siegel made this film as his graduation project at the Lucerne School of Art & Design in Switzerland, handling most of the animation himself in TVPaint and After Effects over eight months. It went on to screen at over 100 festivals, won the Swiss Film Award for Best Graduation Film, screened at Annecy, and earned a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere.

Go watch it.

🎬 Credits

Director: Frederic Siegel
Production: Hochschule Luzern, Design & Kunst / Studienrichtung Animation, Jürgen Haas
Co-Produced by: SRF, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen
Music: Nico Kast
Sound Design & Mix: Thomas Gassmann
Sound Editing & Design: Kilian Vilim
Foley: Dieter Hebben
Additional 2D Animation: Martin Hofer, Zéa Schaad, Christelle Serrano, Viviane Tanner
Additional 3D Animation: Ramon Arango, Michael Zünd Mentor: François Chalet

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The Job Fair

Junior Animator - Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) Lucasfilm / ILM · San Francisco, CA, USA
ILM is hiring a Junior Animator to work on high-quality CG creatures and objects for feature films. You'll work under Senior Animators and Animation Supervisors, contributing to dailies and helping push shots from blocking to final. Maya expertise required. Posting from the studio that literally invented modern VFX
Motion Graphic Designer - Aston Martin F1 · Silverstone, UK
Aston Martin's F1 team is looking for a Motion Graphic Designer to join their creative team, supporting the development of visually compelling content across brand marketing. Strong technical expertise in motion graphics, animation, and graphic design required. If you've ever wanted to combine animation skills with the world of Formula 1, this is your shot.
Senior Cinematic Animator - Warner Bros. / TT Games. Discovery · London, UK
Warner Bros. is hiring a Senior Cinematic Animator to bring life, mood, and tone to real-time in-engine cinematics through high-quality character animation. You'll work within the Cinematic Team on their latest game projects. A great fit for animators looking to bridge film-quality performance with interactive storytelling.

The Random Stuff

🎬 Duet by Léo Brunel x Eddy

One of my former students, Léo Brunel, co-founded this incredible animation collective called MegaComputeur. The guy has been shortlisted for the Oscars, won the BAFTA Student Award for Best Animated Short with Hors Piste, and he recently signed with Paris production company Eddy. And he just dropped a brand new short film called Duet.

It's funny because I remember supervising his animation when he was a student and it was already this. Already a duo of two guys doing stunts and acrobatic tricks. The DNA was already there, even back then.

Duet takes that same energy and cranks it to another level. Two movers trying to get a grand piano up a staircase, and naturally everything that can go wrong does go wrong in the most beautiful way possible. Léo handled almost every step of the production himself, with the piano music composed by Antoine Pagès. The timing, the character work, the physical comedy… everything is just so distinctly him. Go watch it. You'll smile the entire way through. as it evolves into a real hub for animators: rigs, podcast, courses, newsletter, articles, all in one place. Stay tuned.

🎵 Oliver Patrice Weder's new album: Calm Palms

I've been wanting to talk about this guy for a while. Oliver Patrice Weder is a Swiss composer and pianist. You might not know his name, but if you've ever used anything from Spitfire Audio, you've heard his work. He's their lead composer, making tutorials, orchestral pieces, sound design content. That's how I discovered him. And then I checked out his solo music and fell completely in love.

His album The Shoe Factory (2024) is a masterpiece. He moved into a former shoe factory in the Tramuntana mountains of Mallorca and literally recorded the sounds of the machines, interviewed the workers, and turned it all into this gorgeous blend of piano, brass, electronics, and field recordings. It's ambitious, emotional, cinematic.

And just this week, he released a brand new album called Calm Palms with Tristan Reverb. Ten tracks of beautiful ambient music. We're actually in touch on Instagram. He's Swiss, speaks French and English, and is one of the most genuinely kind musicians I've come across. I always dreamed of having a musical career like his: composing albums, scoring films and TV, building a body of work that just keeps getting richer. Give The Shoe Factory a listen, then put on Calm Palms and let it wash over you.

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