S05E16: Brian Leif Hansen: Cooking Up Animation

Growing up on a dairy farm in Denmark, Brian Leif Hansen assumed he’d spend his life living near where he grew up, perhaps a farmer himself, but the universe had other ideas for him. While a love for puppets and animation was always with him, that didn’t seem like a viable option for a career so he did the next best thing and trained to be a chef. While he didn’t realize it then, that early training prepared him for the life of an animator: building stamina, and cultivating an eye for precision and detail. Leaving behind a successful career in the kitchen, at 24 Brian took a leap and enrolled in a program at the world-renowned Animation Workshop and the rest, as they say, is history. In our conversation, Brian shares memories of growing up on a farm and takes us through his whirlwind, if short-lived, career in the culinary arts. He then shares his animation path and how he applied lessons learned throughout his career to tackle his biggest challenge: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Episode Links Website IMDb LinkedIn Host: Marina Antunes Opening & Closing Credits by: Michael Edlund Produced & Edited by: Joshua Peterman ©2023 Spark CG Society · All Rights Reserved. Thank you to our sponsors! TERABYTE: Creative BC. MEGABYTE: Animal Logic · Capilano University · Netflix. KILOBYTE: Atomic Cartoons · Bardel Entertainment · Doberman Pictures · DNEG · Image Engine · Industrial Light & Magic · The Little Dev Shop · Mainframe Studios · Sony Pictures Imageworks · WildBrain Studios. BYTE: Animasia BC · CMPA BC · Digi BC · NOX VFX · Rotomaker · Scanline VFX · Vancouver Film School · Versatile Media · Walt Disney Animation Studios · Wētā FX. PARTNERS: ACM SIGGRAPH · SIGGRAPH Asia. ORGANIZERS: Spark CG Society · Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH.