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). For fifteen years, I specialized in character rigging in Autodesk Maya, 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 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 short break and spent eight months in London working as a Software Developer at The Moving Picture Company (MPC – 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.

Today, my work is focused on continuously looking ahead—keeping technology and workflows aligned with the current state of the art, and ensuring the adoption of the most effective tools, software, and production techniques available.

In 2016, 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.