Cover Letter

Hi!

My name is Eduardo Gutiérrez and I’m a 3d Character Animator from Mexico. I’d like to start these lines by telling a bit about myself. Ever since I was a small kid, I absolutely loved drawing. I was known as the classroom artist and I spent almost every afternoon after school sketching in lots of notebooks. Soon I began creating my own characters, and by the time I was starting Junior High I felt the growing urge to see them moving. That’s how I got involved in the amazingly crazy world of Animation.

I can clearly recall how did I decide I was going to be an animator. There was this movie I saw once, Nightmare Before Christmas. I think there hasn’t been a movie that blew my mind so hard yet. I remember stepping out of the cinema with the characters, the music and the eerie environment rolling in my mind over and over again. I was so impressed I couldn’t believe it; how did they do that? How did they get some dolls become living flesh characters, singing, dancing, talking, thinking? Then I saw the documentary about the movie, where Henry Sellick finally explained the animation process to me. I remember thinking “This is definitely what I want to do with my life.”

So there I was, a young enthusiast of cartoons, feature films, short films and documentaries about stop-motion and hand-drawn animation, playing with an old tape camera and some clay with my small brother over the base of my bed, endless hours of fun and discovery. Eventually I got tired of one technique and began playing with my computer. I got a small 3d modeling and animation program from Corel and found out that we lived in a 3-axis dimension, that things moving were represented in a timeline, and so on. Eventually CG animation was the kind of animation I liked most.

I studied a degree in Graphic Design, Multimedia and Digital Animation where I learned more about it. After I completed it, I realized I knew very little about actually animating, I was focusing too much in learning a tool, and the basic knowledge about how things moved had been happening almost from scratch. So I took an 18 month diploma at AnimationMentor where I learned what I needed about characters and the animation process. I now seek to continue learning about this world, and to get involved in the process of creating life.

If I could only use one adjective to describe myself, it would be enthusiasm. I love working in something that I know will touch an audience. I love to ask and being asked about animation, and I like to get in touch with other people’s way of seeing it. Professionally, I’m great at following commands, and I’m always willing to give some of my time to help others reach their goals; but at the same time I work better when I have my own focus and space of development. My favorite theme of conversation is the Goal in Life; I think that in order to be successful, one should have a goal to fight for, clearly defined in mind. And animation is my own.

Thank you,
Eduardo Gutierrez, Mexico 2008