Hafiz Jessani

2D Animator

Biography

I am a Kenyan student at the UWE arts facility, currently completing my third year of education. I came from a background of drawing and painting, and wanted to put my ideas into motion.

I engaged in various animation mediums over the 3 years, but finally settled on a combination of hand drawn and 2D digital animation. My passion lies in creative expression of ideas in a free-flowing, fluid style. I am currently working on a better understanding off motion and anatomy, to breathe life into characters and place them into beautiful environments. This is my ideal direction.

I also do preproduction work, and still images, and enjoy conceptualising ideas for compatibility with animation.

Filmography

“168” CG Animated film

168 was a short film animated in Autodesk Maya, carried from pre production into post production by the combined effort of four students. I was the story boarder and the creative director, and worked on character animation, lighting, camera work, set modelling and post production.

The storyboards went through various stages, and the collaboration during preproduction culminated in a very mind opening creative process. Team working skills such as communication and effective coordination were tested, and I began to appreciate the value of effective synergy. Screenshots of the final film are displayed on the following page.

2D animation Experiments

During my final year at UWE I produced a reel of free flow traditional animation, working at the lightbox in an impulsive manner to loosen up my expressive potential. This allowed me to bring my own artistic aesthetic into motion, as I had always worked in expressive pen drawings. An integration of hand drawn animation with Flash allows highly expressive pieces to evolve into finished work with a refined aesthetic.

The process involved little pre-production and evolved more as a painting would.

Other Creative work

Environmental Sustainability pitch

A competition was held within the school of creative arts, and students from various courses were invited to participate. The brief was to create awareness of issues surrounding environmental sustainability using the chosen medium. My contribution was a plan for an animated series featuring 25 second storylines adressing different environmental concerns. I designed the idea wanting viewers to make positive associations with environmental sustainability, and see that community efforts can go a long way. The story: Tim, his cat Acorn and the pet goldfish share their living-room with some very unique guests. A little civilisation of globe people have come to call the living-room their home. These globe people or "inhabitants" have adapted their life styles to the eco-systems of the living-room. From the aquarium to the house plants, they try to live harmoniously with their surroundings and its' occupants. However, not fully aware of their effects on their surroundings, the inhabitants often cause minor havoc in different ways. This goes largely unnoticed by Tim, who is, after all, human. Luckily, Acorn is always willing to help them overcome these issues, before they turn into a major crisis!

If I ever make the animation, I would want to merchandise tiny figurines of the inhabitants with their guardian Acorn for people to keep in their living-room.

Pilot episode: The pilot episode features the issue of recycling. The inhabitant city begins to generate large amounts of waste. Garbage piles are building around the city, and they soon start building new rubbish piles around the living-room

Future episode outlines:

Episode 2: The inhabitant city is bustling with activity. Little cars and busses travel through along roads, and planes are flying in and out of the window. The fumes generated by all this activity are beginning to bother our human friend. Acorn sits down with a group of the city's finest engineers, (who are of course wearing little engineer's hats). Some serious discussion and design work take place, and lead to the invention of the bicycle, unleaded fuel, and other solutions to the pollution problem. Episode 3: Acorn has her eyes fixed on the fish tank as a little fisher boat and its inhabitant sail across its waters. (Don't worry, he's capturing tiny fish that we cannot see, not the pet goldfish)! Suddenly, the inhabitant in the boat panics. He has been over fishing, and the huge sac of fish is causing his boat to sink! Acorn rushes to a nearby drawer and rummages for an object. She leaps onto the desk with a sieve in her mouth, and struggles to save the inhabitant. He's soon pulled from the water. As he watches the fish escape into the waters of the tank, he learns a brief lesson about taking too much. Episode 4: The inhabitants need large amounts of wood to maintain their rapid growth, and all the house plants are under attack! Our cat must demonstrate the value of sustainability, and begins to plant new seeds in their wake. Soon the inhabitants understand, and begin to sustain the resources they use from around the living-room. I placed second in the competition, and the poster for the idea displayed at “E shed on Harbour side”.

Personal drawings My personal drawings tend to be a very expressive outlet, in terms of emotional intensity. Until recently,

their direct influence on my animation was limited, until I took the same drawing approach towards the

medium of traditional animation.

The future

I will soon be looking for freelance animation work within the Kenyan advertising industry. I am working on

more refined/finished looking pieces, and hope to find inspiration within the Kenyan environment to

modify my aesthetic.

Visit www.hjessani.blogspot.com to view my progress.