An incognito artist known as Bellopropello is an award-winning indie animator from Zurich, Switzerland. How the former owner of a photo agency found his way into the world of animation and got the 'Best Animation short' award in March 2021 for his "the game just got real" film — read in our interview!
Bellopropello
— Tell us a few words about yourself. How and when did you start your way in animation? Is animation your job or hobby?
Photography is a large part of my life since I was an adolescent young man and later on. Аlthough my main job was in electronics, I earned a sizeable income as a stock photographer. So the jump one day from electronics to running my own photo agency was a logical step. This existence worked extremely well for many years until the increasing digitalization and the emergence of powerful microstock picture agencies made the business less and less profitable (and more and more boring due to countless digital shots of the same motif). In addition, a large part of the labor-intensive main processes was integrated into an online shop.
Nevertheless, my presence in the agency was required, but the jobs were done in the hidden back office, controlled by algorithms and bytes. This was the moment when my animation activities were born. In all these unoccupied minutes I started to work on my first short film <Another Day in Paradise>, which was the result of my try and error actions with the Moho animation program.
<shadowland> trailer
— Why shorts?
I prefer short films because I want to act independently, implement spontaneous ideas, have the possibility of last-minute changes without any discussions with companions, without having any compromises. I'm the master of my thoughts.
— What filters do you like most?
My favorites are textures and patterns:
- Grunge by Kochubey (used in <shadowland>)
- Skyscraper by Threedee (used in <shadowland>)
- Snow_02 by jensp (used in <the game just got real>)
- Pen on watercolor by AlessandroPreviti (used in <the game just got real>)
- Space Marines Corridor by WarpZone (scribble in an ongoing shortfilm project)
- 4000 Degrees Kelvin by TBH-1138 (scribble in an ongoing shortfilm project)
— Do you have a key point or the main theme that is manifested in your short films?
My spectrum ranges from a kind of love film with short-sighted Amor in <cupid is not a terrorist>, over an emotional roller coaster of feelings in <the game just got real> to the anarchistic <another day in paradise>. In the last both longer films, however, I approach the world as it could look in a few years with AI, robots, authoritarian forces, the big reset, and an oppressing of all individual freedoms in <dystopia> or the general isolation of smartphone people and the litter pollution of planet Earth. Taking over human activities by robots is one of my favorite topics and will play a key role in the current film, which will be completed in 2022.
<cupid is not a terrorist> trailer
Bellopropello, thanks for your answers! For more information about all the short films, follow @bellopropello on Twitter and Instagram.
