The Gruffalo Magic

Animation Mentor graduates build a tight bond as they help create an award-winning television special

By Barbara Robertson

Berlin, 2009. A three-room flat stuffed with animators, directors, various computers, desks, tables, everyone working on Studio Soi's The Gruffalo, a BBC television special. The award-winning studio had rented the space in part to attract talented animators more interested in working in Berlin than in their Ludwigsburg studio. And they did, starting with Animation Mentor graduate Max Stöhr. We talked with Stöhr and three other Animation Mentor alumni who signed on for the show.

Stöhr introduced Tobias von Burkersroda, also an alumnus of Animation Mentor, to directors Max Lang and Jakob Schuh. And, von Burkersroda introduced two Mentor Choice Award winners that he had met, Maciej Gliwa from Poland and Alli Sadegiani from Sweden.

Fast forward to 2010. At Annecy International Animation Film Festival, The Gruffalo wins best TV special. The film also receives a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nomination for best short animation, makes the Oscar nomination shortlist for Best Animated Short. The TV special also receives a first prize at IFTS in Tricks for Kids, and Prix Jeuness in the age 7-11 and children's jury categories. It also wins an award at the Ottawa International Film Festival as "Best Television Animation Made for Children."

While the Animation Mentor alumni are justifiably proud of the awards, they treasure the time spent together with the other animators who worked on Gruffalo.

"One of the special things about Gruffalo was the vibe in the studio," says Gliwa, who is now at PDI/DreamWorks. "Animation Mentor brought us together."

Adds Sadegiani, who moved on to work on Walt Disney Animation Studio's Tangled after The Gruffalo. "We had a blast," he says. "None of us know actually what it was, but there was a chemistry. We became best friends. I've never experienced anything like that before."

Coming Together

In 2007, Stöhr was working as a freelance animator when Studio Soi hired him to lend a hand with the pitch for The Gruffalo. "I helped out on one of the shots and did some fixes," he says. "But, they remembered me."

Stöhr, who is from a tiny village in Bavaria near Munich, Germany, was born to be creative, inheriting, as he puts it, a painting gene. His great grandfather, Max Pitzner, made a living by painting. His great-great aunt studied with Matisse. "We had a house full of paintings," Stohr says. But he wasn't interested in creating fine art. Instead, he thought he might try graphic design or filmmaking, and with this in mind he attended an open house at the German Film School. "I liked it right from the beginning," he says. "It was the right decision. And that's where I discovered animation." He also met von Burkersroda and, while there, the two worked together on short films.

After graduation, Stöhr began working as a freelancer, but discovered that he didn't want to be a generalist, which is what he had learned at the German Film School. "I wanted to do animation only," he says. "Tobi [von Burkersroda] had started Animation Mentor a half a year before. It seemed the logical step."

Von Burkersroda had fallen in love with cartoons as a kid, but like Stöhr, hadn't considered becoming an animator. "I was into games," he says. He happened to see a short, CG film from the German Film School and was inspired. After high school (Gymnasium), he went directly to the German Film School.

"In the beginning, when we were studying 2D, I didn't want to animate because my drawing skills were not that good," he says. 3D animation was more interesting to him, so in addition to classes at the school, he subscribed to Keith Lango's tutorials. Following graduation, he did mandatory civilian service. "I thought, 'Oh no, I'm losing nine months,'" he says. To diminish the impact of those nine months, he enrolled in Animation Mentor in 2006.

When The Gruffalo was greenlit, Stöhr and von Burkersroda were the first animators Studio Soi hired and received credit as lead animators for the project. "We started doing some of the blocking in January," von Burkersroda says. "Then, in about three weeks started with the animation. Max got the mouse. I got the fox and did walk cycles to find the animation style for the characters."

"I think Animation Mentor helped us a lot," he adds. "[Gruffalo Director] Jakob [Schuh], had come from a 2D background, so he liked the Animation Mentor workflow where you concentrate on the poses and plan your shots." In March, animation began with Stöhr, von Burkersroda, and the directors in the little Berlin studio.

When the directors asked if the two animators could recommend others for the project, von Burkersroda suggested Gliwa and Sadegiani. And their friendships grew. "Every day we went for lunch together," von Burkersroda says. "After work, we had after work beer. And, on the weekends, we went out together. We all became close friends."

He and Gliwa had met at FMX, an animation, visual effects conference. "Our friendship started," Gliwa says, "because Tobi had his notebook on his knees and he had the Animation Mentor website on the screen. It was amazing to meet someone in person from Animation Mentor."

Gliwa, who comes from a family of lawyers, had narrowly escaped law as a career. "I wanted to do animation," he says. "But I couldn't find a school. So, there was a time when I thought, maybe I should become a lawyer, too. I even started to study law. But after a half a year, I knew, oh my god, that's not for me."

He quit law school and found a school in Warsaw that taught computer science and multimedia. "I learned about programming, but they were not good at teaching animation," he says. He taught himself enough to land an internship with Polish television. When he discovered Animation Mentor, he quit that job, moved back home and began studying animation.

"I took my chance," he says. "I wanted to devote all my time to it. It was a good decision. I had been trying to learn software programs. I didn't know animation was about principles and not about programs." When he finished, he flew to San Francisco for the Animation Mentor graduation and learned that he won the Mentor Choice Award. And when he sent his demo reel to the The Gruffalo directors, they hired him.

Sadegiani had been freelancing for seven years before joining the Gruffalo crew. "I was always into drawing," he says. "It came natural for me." As a teenager in Sweden, he and his friends created computer games on the Amiga. He attended a succession of schools, an art school for four years, and a school that purported to teach visual effects.

"We were supposed to learn using 3D software at a high end level so that we could work in studios," he says. "It turned out it wasn't that way." He bought a light table and books and tried to teach himself animation using 3ds Max version 3 and Character Studio.

"It was cumbersome," he says. "But, I did some tests in 3D and in 2D, which I enjoyed more, and I got some work as a 3D animator. I created a horrible show reel, but it landed me a job at a game studio, which is now DICE."

After four years, he quit to work on his own short films and began freelancing. In 2007, he started taking Animation Mentor classes. "I went straight through all the way while working at the same time," he says. "I had to pay the school and I had to pay my bills, so I worked double shifts for almost two years straight. It almost killed me."

Even though he had already been working as an animator, he realized that he had a lot to learn. "I didn't know what I was talking about," he says. "I was just guessing. You make mistakes and you don't know you're making them because no one tells you, 'how about doing it this way.' Animation Mentor showed me what animation is about. I knew how to use the software. But I didn't know what animation principles, spacing, timing really meant. Or exaggeration and appeal. All those principles."

Sadegiani flew from Sweden to San Francisco for the Animation Mentor graduation, received his Mentor Choice Award, met von Burkersroda, which led to the job on The Gruffalo. "I knew Tobi, but I didn't know the others were Animation Mentor students until I arrived," he says. "What's funny is that our working methods were all different from each other. I relied heavily on recorded references – I acted out [the shots] myself. Tobi and the others didn't do that so much. Maciej [Gilwa] and I did 2D planning before blocking. The others didn't. So, even though we had the same animation language, we had discovered our own ways of working."

In September 2009, Disney called after Sadegiani had finished working on The Gruffalo, and after some months negotiating the paperwork, he started on Tangled. "Working at Disney was a dream for me," he says. "I could walk down the corridors and see my legends. Glen Keane was my animation director. It was so bizarre to walk down the corridor and say, 'Hey, what's up?'"

Right Now

Having finished Tangled, Sadegiani is on holiday and considering offers from other animation studios. Gliwa is still at PDI/DreamWorks Redwood City, Calif., and recently completed working on the film Megamind. Von Burkersroda and Stöhr worked together again on a short film by David O'Reilly, and then at Hammer & Tongs in London on a pilot for an animated feature. They'll start on a new project soon, one they can't talk about yet.

The team that worked together in Berlin is now scattered, but they stay in touch. "I will remember the awesome time I had with these guys forever," Gliwa says. "Not only working on The Gruffalo, but after work, talking about animation. I miss them. I miss them very much. We met. We spent time together. We are friends. Not just colleagues. Real friends."