Featured Member - Antonis Zagoraios
www.pelime.com/tonyzagoraios
www.artonemotion.com
After graduating from London’s Metropolitan College with a Bachelor Degree in Media & Advertising, A.Zagoraios, 28, is currently working as a freelancer digital artist and motion designer, Zagoraios is self-taught artist and has acquired knowledge through seminars and exhausting study. He defines his style as dark and mystique approaches for his motion pieces and he enjoys a distinctive blend of cool and psycho coloring in his works.
TOYLIFE
XPRMNT
Q. Can you explain what triggered your interest in the film industry?
A. I first started by filming TV Commercials as a practice for my Bachelor Degree. I was not using any professional equipment and of course my knowledge was at a very early stage. What really triggered my interest was the idea of giving life to your inner thoughts so that I would be able to visualize feelings in a way by blending those with music. My purpose was to produce my own ‘perspective’ of life.
After finishing each project, I watch it carefully and see that this is a way I use to reflect my personality into the world. The last years, I switched into motion design industry because this industry makes me want to ‘break’ my own boundaries. I build different scenarios; give them a motion/color, some kind of aesthetics to finally obtain an attitude and a style. It is a true challenge to start a motion design piece from scratch. The empty black canvas of your computer monitor can sometimes become your worst nightmare.
Q. Do you have a favorite movie? Is there a reason for that?
A. Difficult to choose just one. I now recall many favorite movies I have seen the last years but if I had to distinguish one, I would say Amores Peros from Alesandro Inharitu. The way this movie blends different lives & characters under the veil of drama, really motivates me.
Crash was also a great movie that similarly marked me and kept me thinking for a few days. Life can be the best director, it is important to know when to just sit back and watch it.
Q. Are there any artists (producer, camera people) in this industry that you admire?
A. I admire a lot of people that are out there. It gives me some kind of power to watch their work and it really helps me to understand the source of these people’s inspirations, their point of view, the reasons they have chosen this or that way or technique etc.
From Directors, I am a big fan of Paul Haggis, Alesandro Inharitu and Darren Aronofsky.
From the Motion Design field, I really like Danny Yount and Kyle Cooper who have designed some of my favorite title sequences and studios like Psyop, Onesize, Prologue, PostPanic.
Q. What does inspire you?
A. The truth is that I never recall a memory of any specific moment, place, situation or feeling that gave me that magical touch of inspiration. The mind is a strange crucible that mixes sounds, images and emotions and it has a clever way of keeping them in your subconscious and letting them go into a sudden moment of clarity. Although If I had to name a great source of my inspiration that would be music…Bands like Mono, God is an Astronaut, Hammock and artists such as Neils Pette, Movaer, Amon Tobin, Hecq are always a mind motivation for dreaming images and concepts.
Q. How do you choose your subjects?
A. I really like to choose my subjects based on how unusual and extraordinary they are.I don’t enjoy working on very common and daily themes/concepts and to be honest I really like the one who will give me the freedom to imprint my own dark approach and style.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about Art On Motion?
A. Artonemotion is my personal creative thinking studio. There is no big team behind it besides my computer and me. I wanted to give it a more fancy name, which represents the basic principles of my work: art, motion, emotion. I am moving into this industry as an individual and not as a big studio, with large rooms and big sofas for clients with fabulous budgets.
Q. Can you talk about your freelance projects?
A. My freelance projects vary from personal projects; from TV Commercials, to Teasers and Trailers and basically wherever motion design art can be applied to.
Q. How is it to be working as a digital freelance artist?
A. Working as a freelancer it’s not the easiest decision you can make in your life, especially nowadays. Courage, patience and a careful action plan is a must if you want survive and make a profit in the business. Although it has some great advantages such as working on your own for yourself, it also has challenges such as choosing in between the projects that come to you, the one that you will finally take over.
Q. Are there any projects that you have done until now that you would call ‘my favorites’?
A. Yes! One of my favorite pieces is called “XPRMNT” and it’s a self-oriented project. I had really no specific concept in mind when I started creating it…One day, it just happened when I saw two different images on the Internet, which were completely non-related between each other; it was the Logo of Superman and a scary fly. I stared at them for a moment and I started thinking: what if the fly had a super belt that would make it a hero? What if the fly had scary hair that would make it a monster? What if the fly had to live in darkness that would make it evil?
I know that these were totally abstract thoughts and concepts. But in the end for my surprise, that project went unexpectedly well. Many views-likes and commented on it in Vimeo. I also had been selected as a one of six candidates to be shown on the CEMUSA Digital network in New York City, where I won the second prize in Made with After Effects competition by Chris & Tris Meyer. Vimeo Staff informed me later on that I didn’t get into the Vimeo Festival Awards in Motion Graphics Category because I was short of few votes.
Q. Are there any interesting Film & Television projects that you have been a part of that would like to talk about?
A. Toylife was one of my latest works as a motion designer. That TVC was all about giving your old toys to poor children, pure charity purpose. I had to take video footage from great Director Yannis Christoforou and try to load it with a lot of infographic data. I worked a lot of days for it and the challenge was to keep a general style and aesthetics through all the shots. The end titles of Toylife are really the part I enjoyed the most because I wanted to imitate the mathematical triangulation of data and then transform it to the final text. Toylife was a great surprise for me; it managed to get into STASH Magazine, Issue#77 (Stash is one of the most known magazines worldwide for animation / vfx and motion design).
Q. Have you ever done any Animation projects?
A. No. Motion Design often requires Animation skills but I have no project that represents the whole philosophy and technique of Animation.
Q. Which project of yours could be called as you most successful one?
A. XPRMNT and Toylife are two of my most successful projects so far.
Q. Do you use specific equipment & techniques?
A. I use the regular equipment and software that each designer needs to be using nowadays. No extreme machines and tricks.
I use a PC windows platform along with Adobe Software such as After Effects and Photohop in addition to a 3D Software named Cinema 4D and occasionally some programs that need for additional techniques such as 3D Tracking (Synth Eyes).
Q. Are you working on new projects currently?
A. Yes. There are some serious and fun projects I am working on right now. Can’t reveal more at the moment.
Q. What are your professional ambitions and your projects for 2011?
A. Ambition is a great way to loose your mind…although I expect from 2011 to have projects that will boost my creativity and take my technique one step further. I would also like to take on projects that will require my personal style as well.
Q. How do you hope Pelime can help with this?
A. Pelime is a great place for creative people to meet. Surely you can take inspiration, share your own point of view and of course find the chance to show your work. In addition to that, I find great the whole platform and navigation of the site. I guess that 2011 will also be for Pelime a great year.
