April 28, 2022April 28, 2022

A Decade-Long Animation Story

by in Spotlight
4
A Decade-Long Animation Story

2011: 17-year-old Hakob is one of TUMO’s first students
2021: He’s working on the remake of Disney’s animated film, Pinocchio

Hakob’s animation story has one decade’s worth of successes and challenges, fateful encounters, hard work, and a whole lot of love for his profession.

main - A Decade-Long Animation Story

Hakob working as a workshop leader in Yerevan

In TUMO’s early days, each student had an avatar and self-learning took place on islands. After gaining basic skills on animation island, Hakob quickly moved onto working on special projects. One year later, Hakob was already sharing his knowledge and advice with students as a learning coach. His message for TUMOians? Don’t be afraid to dream big. He gave the same advice to himself: Hakob’s goal was to animate a Disney film one day.

1 6 - A Decade-Long Animation Story
2 4 - A Decade-Long Animation Story
3 3 - A Decade-Long Animation Story

Animation workshops at TUMO Stepanakert, TUMO Gyumri, TUMO Dilijan

When Anahit, the film he had worked on at the Sahakyants Animation Studio, hit the big screen, Hakob decided to return to TUMO as a workshop leader and work on bigger projects.

In 2018, Hakob was one of the first students to enroll at the Griffin Animation Academy, founded by head animator of Double Negative Studio, Eddie Chew. (The two had connected when Chew paid a visit to TUMO and met some students.) After graduating from the academy, Hakob continued to build his animation showreel and work at local studios like Triada Studio, where he focused on the cinematics of the League of Legends game.

In 2021, Hakob scored an interview with Moving Pictures Company, a studio that works with Netflix and Disney on large projects like Transformers, The Little Mermaid, Chip ‘n’ Dale and Cruella. It’s already been six months since Hakob has joined the team in Montreal and he’s ready to share the big news about their next project: Disney’s coming Pinocchio film will premiere in 2022.

image - A Decade-Long Animation Story

With this dream crossed off, he already has another one: to open an animation school in Armenia and bring international recognition to the Armenian film industry. Maybe in ten years, we’ll see what students from his future school are up to.