Today we’d like to introduce you to Junyi Xiao.
Hi Junyi, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Becoming an animator is more or less accidental. Although I watched a lot of cartoons from Eastern Europe, Japan, the United States and China when I was a child, I never thought that I would choose animation as my career. Like many Chinese students, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future when I was a student. I gradually fell in love with this free and creative art till I began to study animation systematically in my junior year of the University
After finishing my studies in China, I came to LA and continued to study animation at the School of Film Art in USC. After graduation, I joined the animation studio Buck Design and started to work there till now.
I didn’t think I could become a professional animator for a long time until my first short film was screened at Annecy International Animation Festival, and I saw the audience in the cinema applauding the film after the screening, I am sure that animation is something that I can work on as a career for the rest of my life.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has never been a smooth road. My struggles mainly come from the transformation of identity. In China, I am the representative of the most mainstream group, while in the United States, Asian males have become one of the most invisible minority groups. The huge change gave me the opportunity to examine my identity from a different perspective, and it also allowed me to start looking at other ethnic and sexual minorities. These new experiences also provide new inspiration and angles for my own personal creations. In contrast to my career as an animator, it has been much smoother. When I was in USC, I got the opportunity to start my summer intern at Buck Design, which is known as the Harvard in motion design industry. This three-month internship experience brought me a lot of valuable experience. After graduation, I successfully returned to Buck Design and have been working there ever since.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At Buck Design, I’m working as a senior 2D animator. I’m doing cel animation, leading cel jobs and sometimes working as a storyboard artist as well. Besides that, I’m also an independent animation filmmaker. My films have been selected and screened at many leading international animation festivals all over the world including Annecy and Hiroshima. I’m also a professional member of ASIFA-Hollywood and served as a nomination judge on the Special Production category for the 50th Annual Annie Awards.
I’m happy that I can keep making my own films after I started working as a professional animator. It is not always easy to balance the time, shifting the mindset from animation commercials to independent films are also challenging. But looks like I’ve done a good job so far.
For winning the category International Animated Short Film Competition of the CHILEMONOS Festival, my latest film Tomato Kitchen is in the initial list of the Oscars 2024 since CHILEMONOS is an Academy Award qualifying festival. Even though it is not guaranteeing a final nomination for the Oscars, but it is still a great achievement that I’m so proud of.
The ambivalence that has always been with me probably made me a better artist. When I was in China, I studied art in a university which is famous for science and engineering; after leaving China, I experienced a change of identity from a mainstream ethnic group to a minority ethnic group; and my everyday job now is mainly to make animation commercials, which is totally different from being an independent filmmaker. In completely different cultures and fields, I am constantly learning and looking for a balance. It may be for these reasons that my personal films have some styles and characteristics that are different from others.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Maybe I am more persistent. I have been doing the same thing for so many years, and finally, I have achieved a little achievement in this matter. Many of my talented friends and colleagues left the animation industry one after another and switched to industries that seemed more promising at the time. If they stayed in the animation industry, they might also be able to achieve great achievements! But everyone has their own choices, I cannot comment on other people’s decisions.
Contact Info:
- Website: junyixiao.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/junyixiao9051/
- Other: https://vimeo.com/junyixiao
Image Credits
Junyi Xiao
