Chris Sasaki: Visiting Professional

Studied in Burbank for 4 years - it was the central hub for animation, such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. He was a production intern at Dreamworks Art Department and learnt alot from the experience, He began to bring his work into the studio in which talented artists gave him valuable advice, helping to narrow down his practice to just character design. Before which he was undecided about what area he wanted to continue with and with the feedback and support from the amazing artists at Dreamworks he was able to narrow it down.

His first proper animated movie was Monsters University in which he designed monsters, such as the Oozma Kappa among many others, and whilst he was working on this movie he was also working on Inside Out. When getting an assignment, he would focus on one character with a lot of research involved, spending at least three days collecting research material to make him understand the characters more. His stuff might look stylised but alot is from reference, and this drives the final design.

When you find that small sense of authentically, work on it, make it believable. Add those little details, those considerations of how big the stitching would be, how much of it would there be, what pattern would it depict or would their be none at all?

After spending about 3-4 days on researching the last two days would be spent on drawing. He would then meet with the production designer before showing to the rest  (directors), and he would then gain feedback and start the process of researching and drawing again. A crit of work - prefers having the directors that are straight forward as it's their vision, you're there to support them, bringing it to life. Make sure you get used to the bad feedback, and if you do get bad feedback, start from the beginning, go back to researching and try again. You have to lead them through it - He tries to subtly make them like the designs that he likes but they always end up choosing a different design.

He considers about who the character is, what he is trying to sell and what the purpose it has within the story. Every artists is different, try to bring your own influences into it. The use of different media depends on the timeline of the project he gets, wants to do as much as possible with the time he is given. When he does get given more time he does explore with media however with short deadlines it is easier digitally. Will create turnarounds of the character, pretty much the blue prints for the characters.

The reality is you can work with other people but you need to tell people what to do - leave notes, everyone is on the same team.

Art is 20% of the production, the rest is behind the scenes and working on the film. Whatever you can do to bring your personalities into your work, the better it is. Authenticity, something fresh. There needs to be a reason why as to what work you are going to do - don't jump in, state your intentions and know what you're going to do - who are your characters, research into them. When you know that you know the world then you can design.

Sasaki tires to do as much as possible with hand drawn works, however using a computer can be the most efficient tool, as the end product would be transferred to digital. Try to keep work as lose as possible. Learning to sculpt now, as he needs his drawings to translate to 3D, sometimes his designs don't work well when they become 3D so he has to tweak and redesign until it does work well.

He uses a lot of storyboarding into the character designs that he does. You need to learn everything before narrowing it down. You need a foundation of everything to help you inform your practice everything is a resource.

Sasaki had 3 portfolios, one for TV, Sets and Character Design. He put something in one of them that he felt ruined it. The character design portfolio was filled with all the work he was proud of. Got him all the jobs that he applied for,

We're all like costume designers, a lot of research is needed to be specific, for example the consideration of stitching, thickness of cloth, folds and style of cloth. All these elements can change the image. With colour however he gives suggestions but it is up to the others for the colour.

Twelve artists on a film, a few people doing the lighting and shading - broken down to specifics, they all work together, they have a common understanding and know that they are in a team.

Character Silhouette - As he has a 2D animation background, he already had an understanding of gestures and actions, from the movement to the line of action. It was always there in the back of his mind, This helps him to consider the shapes of the character and storytelling.  Is constantly considering performance, need that key pose, that gesture that captures the character. Studying film for performance helps to understand what makes that character. What actions are they known for?

Sometimes the characters are affected by the voice actor, especially the famous ones.

They always have a code name for the title first as sometimes this can take awhile to be decided.

Story - Once the director has an idea - they find out the heart of the story, need to make sure that this is something that everyone wants to do. Character designs that are not used are put into the archive department and someone else chooses the work to put into the art book. They also have a gallery showing of the work.

Any personal projects? Currently working on his own short stories, illustrating them himself. You've gotta have that thing for yourself, to grow and keep interesting in what you love. Consider the new advancements, new storytelling in gaming with the Oculus Rift for example. Consider designing around that, how can you make your work fit with these specifications.

This talk with Sasaki was amazing, I learnt so much and was very inspired by the work he had done and tips that he had given us for the industry. It was very motivating with trying to sort out my portfolio to suit my practice as well as try and develop my style of drawing further. I was honoured to have Sasaki quickly look at the work that we were currently working on in the Food Module, with the 'A History of Cake' work, we unfortunately didn't get a chance to explain our idea to him but we were able to show the design work so far for the production. He really liked Anna's character designs and loved the textures of the backgrounds that Rebecca had made so far.