Animators that changed my life. (pt.1)?—?Arslan Elver

This series of posts will be about Animators that changed my life one way or another, whether they know it or not.

I want to share these posts because I believe that everyone must know who these people are. I could talk about great animators forever, mentioning all the greats, names like that of Hayao Miyazaki, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Don Bluth, John Lasseter, Winsor McCay, Richard Williams, Eric Goldberg, Glen Keane, Walt Disney or Disney’s Nine Old Men. However, this isn’t my goal here.

I have to mention that this is not about people who are considered to be at this level of fame, even though they deserve to be. This is about people who are presently shaping the animation industry by putting their artistry at work. I hope I will introduce them and their work to some people who haven’t been fortunate to discover it yet.

In this first part of these posts I will write about the man, the myth, the legend… The amazing Arslan Elver.

He is currently an animation supervisor at Framestore, and he is wandering in space as he writes in his description on twitter. I believe his latest project was Christopher Robin.

Arslan comes from Istanbul, Turkey, and he is a self-taught animator who started as a Flame artist for commercials when he discovered his passion for animation.

After working in Games, he first joined Framestore in 2006 where he worked on “Underdog”, “The Golden Compass” and the third season of “Primeval” as an Animator, and “Clash of the Titans” as Lead Animator. He took on the role of Senior Animator for house elves Dobby and Kreacher for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and Rocket for “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

During his time at ILM, Arslan was Lead Animator on “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and Associate Animation Supervisors on Marvel’s “Ant-Man”. In 2016, he was nominated for a VES award for his work as Lead Animator on Maz in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

He was reunited with director James Gunn for Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”, which saw him taking on the role of Animation Supervisor.

Fun fact — Arslan means lion in Turkish and he animated Aslan on Narnia. He is without a doubt an amazing animator that helped bring to life some of awesome characters in some of my favorite movies. But to me, Arslan is even more important.

I met him in real life when I was on my second year of studying at Lincoln University. He was invited there to give a presentation about animation. Everyone wanted to know about his work on star wars because it was about to hit the cinemas a few weeks after. As you’d expect he wasn’t allowed to talk about it at all and instead he gave a very entertaining talk on the vfx process of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

You guessed it right, I was blown away by the animation part. Seeing The Hulk and Ultron coming to life got me really interested in vfx animation.

After the talk he came over our class and had a conversation with everyone who was interested one on one and asked if we wanted any feedback. I was terrified to show him my work at the time, especially because I knew it was crap. I remember how he reacted as if I was doing a good job just for trying, which was very encouraging. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn’t comprehend his feedback even though I remember exactly what he told me and now it makes complete sense. I showed him a run cycle of a cougar and he talked about spacing and silhouettes and arcs of the feet. He told me not to hyper-extend the feet and to keep up the “good” work. I remember thinking, how can a guy SO talented be SO down to earth?

He also shared how difficult it was for him to get the first job in London. It was very inconvenient sending VHS tapes around and trying to get the necessary visas. Even more so considering that when he was first accepted for a visa the embassy was bombed in the Istanbul bombing or something along these lines. He struggled to succeed but with persistence and positive attitude, he achieved his dream.

I am very grateful I got to meet him because he demystified animation for me, in the best way. Made me feel like it’s possible. When I watched some of the movies he worked on before, I thought that people who make this are some kind of aliens/geniuses born with special “talent” and I could never do that. But Arlsan seemed like me. Just like a better, older version of me. I admire him and talking to him made me feel like it is possible.

I would sit there in the class with him and think “oh he’s from a lesser country too” as far as the animation industry is concerned. In Greece all I could do would probably be commercials if I am lucky. Fortunately both Turkey and Greece are slowly building this industry nowadays. Anyway, I was thinking he talks kind of like me, he is coming from a culture very close to mine… Our experience of the world has been probably somehow similar, and even though we are very different, we perceive some things in a similar way.  Or at least I’d like to believe so. 

Well then, it doesn’t seem weird that I could have the same job as him. I started seeing the path. Everyone has different path of course and I knew that I’ll have to find my own way, but after this day I knew that it is possible.

I watched everything I could find about him and his work online to an extreme level. I even took the time to watch some feedback and critiques online that he is talking in Turkish (which of course I don’t speak).

In addition, about a year later, after I graduated, I worked as a teaching assistant at the university for the animation course. We went on a day trip to visit MPC studios in London. Before our presentation with MPC we went for lunch and as I was waiting to pay, in the queue behind me, suddenly I see Arslan. I said hi and somehow he remembered me, and I was amazed once again with how “chill” and friendly he is. At the same time, by his side, was Alvise Avati who I had seen on youtube before and admired a lot. 

But more on Alvise later.

After that, when I was taking a course with Animation Mentor, he did an online presentation on Guardians of the galaxy 2 which gave me the chills and motivated me to keep trying to get better at animating and not give up.

Arslan Elver changed my life because he is an amazing, cool guy, down-to-earth who is very passionate about animation. He also has a great sense of humor which I related to easily. I really like him and have tremendous respect for him. I would love working with him someday.

In the meantime, I’ll try to practice my animation so that my hope of working with people like him can become something more realistic. 

Check out his work, keep trying to learn and set the bar high!

Follow him!

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