INSPIRO AWARD Winner Olivier Staphylas!

And the Winner for December 2011, INSPIRO AWARD goes to Olivier Staphylas working at Dreamworks Animation. Olivier is a 30 year old native of France. (His Bio) Olivier Staphylas is a 30 year old native of France who has been living in Los Angeles for the last 5 years. In 2003 Olivier graduated from Supinfocom with honors and a degree in Computer Graphics. The following year, in 2004, he entered directly into the third year of studies at the prestigious Gobelins L'Ecole De L'Image in Paris where he graduated first in his class and with a degree in Character Animation. Olivier was not only the first to graduate from two of France's finest visual arts universities, but was also the first, and to date, the only student to accomplish the feat with both honors from Supinfocom and first in his class at Gobelins. Olivier just finished lending a technical and creative hand to the recently released, How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and is the Supervising Animator of Puss on the Dreamworks Animation movie Puss In Boots (2011). He is also the onset photographer for an independent sci-fi film in production as well as concurrently pursuing personal endeavors on a variety of projects ranging from photography to music video art direction to short films.

Whats really inspiring is that Olivier went from character animator on Kung Fu Panda to Supervising Animator on Puss In Boots. Amazing.

He is a multifaceted artist and clearly has a magic eye for storytelling. From photography, design and Animation all show a unique and clear sense of narrative. Thanks for inspiring me and I hope this might reach others who aspire on day to be where you are now. See you soon Animators!

Please click on award image to read more about Olivier Staphylas on his web page.