I have been working in character animation for over twenty years, contributing to a wide range of projects including short films, CGI bids, TV commercials, TV series, animated feature films, and visual effects (VFX). First I specialized in character rigging in Autodesk Maya, (I still loving it by the way…), before progressively shifting my focus toward the design and leadership of production pipelines for medium to large animation studios.

At the beginning of my career, after earning a degree in Industrial Design, I worked as a hard-surface modeler. During my first five years at Pool Factory, I had the opportunity to grow alongside the company as it expanded from three to thirty people—an intense and formative experience. While covering several roles, I was introduced to character rigging by experienced professionals from the United States. Under the mentorship of Giancarlo Lari, Filippo Costanzo, Peter Greenstone, and Brad Blackbourne, I developed my skills as a character rigger within the company founded in Rome by Flaviano Pizzardi and Franco Tomassi.

I subsequently worked on a long series of television commercials, typically within small but highly efficient teams. Over time, I collaborated repeatedly with the same group of talented artists across different companies, which eventually led us to found a new studio together: Justeleven. This experience was both exciting and challenging, as it allowed me to expand my responsibilities beyond my core tasks—such as character rigging, some coding, and compositing—to include bidding, management, and budgeting. 

In 2007, seeking new challenges, I joined Framestore-CFC in London as part of the rigging development team for The Tale of Despereaux. This was the company’s first fully animated feature film and a major turning point in my career. I was responsible for developing the body deformation pipeline for all characters. For the first time, I had the opportunity to dedicate the necessary time and focus to building a complex and refined system. This experience profoundly influenced my approach to character work and CG production in general, especially in terms of workflow design and efficiency.

After completing the project, I returned to Italy and joined Rainbow CGI, where I contributed to improving character rigging tools and overall production workflows across multiple shows. Over time, I led pipeline development efforts to address the evolving requirements of projects of varying scales.

In 2015, I took a break and spent eight months again in London working as a Software Developer at The Moving Picture Company (Technicolor Group) on Disney’s The Jungle Book. MPC, a global leader in VFX for over 25 years, offered me valuable exposure to high-end visual effects production within a major, large-budget feature film environment.

From 2016 to 2020, I led the technical alignment of Rainbow CGI Studio in Rome with its sister company, Bardel Entertainment, following Rainbow Group‘s acquisition of the Canadian studio. Through several business trips to Vancouver, I helped both teams recognize that the two studios had distinct yet complementary expertise in animation production. This understanding laid the foundation for successful co-productions, with carefully planned work splits that maximized the strengths of both companies. This collaborative model remained in place for more than six years.
In many productions, asset creation was handled in Rome while episode production took place in Vancouver. Depending on the pipeline selected at the start of each project, finalization—including motion graphics, FX, lighting, rendering, and compositing—was then completed either in Rome or in Vancouver.

Ten years ago I co-founded the Italian association of Visual Effects professionals, AVFX, driven by the belief that meaningful improvements in the VFX sector can only be achieved through collaboration between artists and vendor companies. The association was created to address shared challenges and to foster growth and professionalism across the industry. In 2023, I was honored to be elected President of AVFX. In this role, I am proud to have revived its most well-known event, the Festival of Visual Effects and Animation CGI, a long-standing and widely recognized reference point within the Italian VFX industry.

Over the past few years, alongside my work in production, I have found great fulfillment in teaching at Rainbow Academy. It can be challenging, but there is something incredibly rewarding about helping younger students understand the value of patience, perseverance, and hard work—especially in a time when they are often led to believe that anything can be achieved quickly and effortlessly.