09/12/2020
Meet our young rising star Tarun lak.
Born American grown Indian.
Working as an Animator at Pixar Animation Studio. Here is a short interview with him:
His first professional project was during an internship at LAIKA, the stop motion house to help out on some CG crowds animation for 'Kubo and the Two Strings'.
After graduating college he worked at a commercial house called Psyop animating on quite a few commercials for various clients including Supercell, Cricket Wireless, Coca Cola, Aldi, Honda and Minecraft.
He did a brief stint freelancing at JibJab on a netflix show called 'Ask the storybots' before moving to Sony Pictures Imageworks to work on 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'.
After Spider-Verse he worked briefly on 'The Angry Birds Movie 2', and then came down to join Pixar.
He started at Pixar to animate on 'Onward', then on 'Soul' and currently working on our 2021 summer release 'Luca'.
“When the movie spiderverse had come out and I started to share some of my work on social media, someone I had met previously from Pixar liked the work I did on it and reached out to see if I was interested in coming here.
That sounds like an easy path but it didn't happen without a handful of rejections from them in the years prior to it, from the time I was in college and really early in my career,
Pixar has been great so far, It's a very welcoming and nurturing environment, where you're encouraged to learn and grow from each other, and get help if you ever need it.
People have fun, have a life outside of work, but work really hard at their jobs. It's always really inspiring to pop by your co-workers and see what they're working on.”- says Tarun.
- What keeps you motivated to be in this field?
It's a very creatively challenging job, where no two assignments are ever the same. There's always something potentially interesting in a shot to animate, and that makes it fun.
There are many types and styles of stories that can be told in animation, and it's exciting to work on something completely different in style and subject from the project before it.
There are always people I consider are far better animators than I, so there's always something to look up to and learn from.
- What advice would you like to give to the young Indian animators?
For Indians specifically I would try to embrace their Indian identity and what that means to them, and potentially bring it into their own projects.
For animators in general, I would recommend being curious about various subjects, various types of art and film.
This job can be tough at times, but it's good to remember that animation is something fun that brings entertainment and joy to people. Learn to enjoy the challenges and the journey this career brings, and have fun at the job.
