Simon Otto
Simon Otto (born June 12, 1973) is a Swiss character animator, story artist and director. He is best known for his work as the Head of Character Animation of the Oscar-nominated How to Train Your Dragon movie franchise for DreamWorks Animation. He directed several episodes of various Netflix TV-Shows, such as Dragons: Race to the Edge and TrollHunters: Tales of Arcadia and was an integral part of DreamWorks Animation’s character animation department for two decades.
Early Life and Education:
Otto was born in Uznach, Switzerland and grew up in Gommiswald in the canton of St. Gallen. After he completed his banking apprenticeship at the Raiffeisenbank Gommiswald, he worked as a snowsculptor and news cartoonist for the newspaper Die Südostschweiz. He is a graduate of F&F School for Art and Media Design and Gobelins, l’Ecole de L’image.
Career
Simon began his career carving commercial snow sculptures in several resort towns such as Arosa and St. Moritz and drawing news cartoons for his hometown newspaper, "Die Südostschweiz". After completing a banking apprenticeship, he redirected his attention to the arts and attended the Vorkurs at the F&F Schule fuer Experimentelle Gestaltung in Zurich. Following that, he left Switzerland to study at the prestigious Les Gobelins Animation School in Paris, France. During his studies, he received additional animation training through an internship with Walt Disney Feature Animation in Montreuil, Paris where the studio was working on ‘Hercules’. After finishing their graduation film ‘Les Mouettes’ that Otto co-directed with Fabrice O. Joubert they were both hired by DreamWorks Animation in 1997 to work as character animators on their first animated film, The Prince of Egypt. He subsequently worked as a Supervising Animator on many of the studio's animated features both in 2D and in CG, including Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the Aardman co-production, Flushed Away. Otto also worked as a character designer on the hit comedy, Over the Hedge. In the fall of 2006, Simon began his 12 year journey as as the Head of Character Animation on the How to Train Your Dragon movies. In addition to overseeing the animation of the films, Simon has been instrumental in developing the look of the characters, their personalities, and the overall style of the animation as well as working in the story department on the second and third film. Simon designed the principal dragon Toothless as well as his love interest the white LightFury among other characters in the franchise.
During this period, Simon has also directed various television episodes for DreamWorks TV and Netflix.
Personal Life
Simon is married to Fumiko Kitahara Otto, a film publicist. They met while working at DreamWorks Animation and have one son, Maximilian together.
References[edit]
External links[edit]
This article "Simon Otto" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Simon Otto. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
|
This page exists already on Wikipedia. |
