Daniel Poeira – Brazil.

Daniel Poeira Demo Reel

Above is the brilliantly quirky animation demo reel of one Daniel Poeira. It is a visual feast comprised of his movie excerpts plus tests and unfinished projects. Some wonderful low tech bits in the mix here which I am particularly fond of. Daniel is a Brazilian artist and currently teaches cinema and animation at the School of Fine Arts at UFMG in the city of Belo Horizonte.

Below Daniel gives us the back story on his cinema school and Poeira Studios, an unedited and entertaining read. These four close friends (unrelated) collaborating under the adopted Poeira pseudonym (clue: they’re huge fans of the Ramones) met in college and recently reunited.

Our story begins in 1985 when the Canadian government wanted to send some satellites up in space. They wanted to use the Brazilian rocket launching site of Hell’s Barrier in the northeast. As part of the technological agreement to do so, the National Film Board of Canada created 5 animation and cinema schools in Brazil. One of them was founded in the city of Belo Horizonte, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

Cut to 1998 when Daniel, Ricardo, Fábio and Tatiane entered the school, seeking the animation specialization at the arts course. Back then, the animation program was fairly abandoned, and only one teacher actually cared about animation. The fine arts teachers discriminated against us because we wanted to make animation, and the school didn’t have any equipment—there was no money to put film on the cameras, and there were no computers either.

Against all odds, the group struggled against the difficulties and started producing animation in any way they could. Back then, there were no miniDV cameras or YouTube, and we had to do everything on 486 computers, webcams, animated GIFs, etc. Turning every single school assignment into a full-fledged short movie, the group experimented all kinds of techniques, and pioneered many digital techniques. As the animation program slowly digitized itself, Poeira Filmes brought many new techniques that none of their teachers knew, like chroma key, digital animation, non-linear editing, and other things that are today considered fairly normal.

By the time our heroes graduated, they had amassed about half an hour of animated films, breaking all records in the school’s history. After leaving school, they set up a real life studio. Poeira Filmes became Poeira Studios, and started producing all kinds of animation films, commercials, websites, and assorted commercial works.

Eventually, Daniel Poeira left the studio do pursue an academic career in animated cinema. The studio kept working, doing e-learning, character design and other commercial work.

After a few years, Daniel Poeira started his long-awaited plan to take revenge upon his school. By becoming a professor at the new animation program, he brought back the Poeira spirit to the school, starting a new era in its tradition. At the same time, Poeira Studios launched a new service: animation free courses, open to all ages.

After 11 years of adventures, the Poeiras are now reunited, and prepare a wide plethora of projects for 2010. Animation shorts, web series, TV series, animation books, free courses, toy art, prints, comics… the possibilities are endless. All in the name of good, honest, creative and weird animation.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tagged as: Animation, art, Brazil, Daniel Poiera, film, Poiera Studios