What is your name and your current occupation?
My Name’s Eva Bruschi and I’ve just started working as 2d Layout artist for a feature film, that is “Iqbal – Tale of a fearless child” dedicated to Iqbal Masih. This is a co-production with Italian Gertie, Editions Montparnasse, Spectra Animation and 2d 3D Animation. I’m very honoured to be part of this team.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to work in a special archive made of lots and lots of audio and videos recordings which contain stories from italian popular music and traditions. Â There we had to digitize all the old analogical recordings made by researchers all around Italy, from the 50s till our days.. and sometimes there were crazy weird things to listen to! I’ve been there for almost 4 years 🙂
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m proud of having been part first of all of “Ice Banana” team, the short film made by my class at Scuola Internazionale di Comics. Then I’m very proud about almost all the projects I’ve been working (yes, I’m an enthusiast!), starting from other feature films like Pinocchio by Enzo D’Alò in which I did animation assistant and Gladiators of Rome 3D by Rainbow cgi in which I was storyboard artist, until smaller one like some Italian TV series, with many drawings to do in a very few time! 😀 Those projects gave more certainty and awareness of my own work, even if the road has just started!
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Florence, in the beautiful Tuscany and here I attended Scuola Internazionale di Comics like I said before. The school gave me the artistic and technical fundamentals and introduced me to this world of cartoon animation. A special thanks goes to every single professional teacher that gave me the chance to discover the Magic 🙂
What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
I turn off my first alarm clock from my mobile with a quiet track by Sonic Youth, then after few minutes my second one, more piercing and psychedelic, at the other side of the room, every morning with “out of model” movements .. maybe like most of us :) Then I turn on my pc and say hello on Skype, then shower and coffee, sometimes in the order, some others mixed.. After “the procedure” I read the mailbox and some news, then the great start: there is Photoshop, windows viewer opened, project folders placed everywhere on the desktop, excell docs to read work notes, sometimes Spotify just to check how many things can manage my beautiful powerful pc.. (I work at home 🙂 ) Then, second coffee. My lunch is quite fast, just because my goal is the third coffee! Afternoon is almost like the morning, and ends with.. another coffee. Addicted ?! 🙂  My 9 kg cat is absolutely part of my days and He remembers me to go out of the monitor more often and to take more breaks… to feed Him 🙂 I try not to work after dinner, so I sometimes relax ..drawing something! ..
What part of your job do you like best? Why?I love every phase that goes from storyboard to animation, but in general I do love when everything goes like it has to go. Discounted ?! :)Â This work (and It still sounds strange sometimes to call it work!) can be seen like one of the happiest work to people who just watch the final products.. I mean, you draw, what else ?! Â But I discovered so many knots going through the productions I worked for, sometimes too many inconsistencies compared to the simplicity of the work itself. What a pity! 🙁
What part of your job do you like least? Why?
At least I like when I want to go on but my eyes say no! It’s frustrating!
What kind of technology do you work with on a daily basis, how has technology changed in the last few years in your field and how has that impacted you in your job?
For doing layout I daily use Photoshop, in the past I used ToonBoom for animation assistance, then Photoshop with Cartoon Television Program to animate. If I add Premiere there they are the principals software that I use.  I started this work with a graphic tablet, even if at school you learn to animate on paper on light table. So I can’t talk directly for myself if I say that surely technology has improved many parts of this work, ’cause I have not felt that kind of pressure for a deadline working on paper. But animating directly with Photoshop or other dedicated software is incredibly faster, it gives you lots and lots of opportunity to modify completely or to change just something without destroying an entire sheet of paper for example 🙂 and it lets you understand faster the movement of what you are trying to move; in this way your sign and your mind improve to go straight on together in the best way.  I venture to say that probably this technology also bypasses the graphics of the design in some way, leaving space just to animation itself. I mean, if you’re good at animating but your sign is not so good, digital technology gives you so many ways to bypass the graphic part.
What is the most difficult part for you about being in the business?
I think this is trying to be productive every day with the same quality. There are high and low points for everyone in a life, but this work takes a lot of what we are, so I think this point is one of the harder, you can find yourself forcedly smiling at the mirror just because you have to draw that kind of expression! And maybe that feeling is not part of the mood you have that day. Even if sometimes the same reason can change your day and this is the greatest thing! 🙂
In your travels, have you had any brushes with animation greatness?
I didn’t met any animation greatness if you mean known to the whole world, but I met many great professional people maybe unknown to some parts of the globe, that gave me, also indirectly, precious advices and beautiful examples of their art.
Describe a tough situation you had in life.
Someone very bad killed two of my turtles with a mower. I’m going to do a kind of “pulp” animation with my personal revenge. I can’t do anything more in real life, however this is another face of the power of animation >:)
Any side projects you’re working on that you’d like to share details of?
The animation of which I talked before! Soon details on my web page 😉 http://evabroosky.jimdo.com/
Any unusual talents or hobbies like tying a cherry stem with your tongue or metallurgy?
I love to stick fruits labels on the kitchen wall, throw coloured clay balls on the ceiling of my room, peel wires to take copper to make something, build things disassembling others.. and then I love sketching http://evabroosky.jimdo.com/let-s-sketch/ , to play the guitar or my new yellow ukulele. Photography is my old passion.
Is there any advice you can give for an aspiring animation student or artist trying to break into the business?I’m so happy to live in Italy, landscape, position, food, history, these are the things I love of my country. At the same time, unfortunately, animation is not a part of our culture in a consistent way. There’s art education, but animation industry is strange. To a guy who wants to start this career, get around in, I would recommend to get the bases here, yes, but then to go out and turn Europe to continue the artistic career, and then maybe come back here in Italy and try to turn things in a better way. Otherwise, to stay out from the beginning. Here you definitely learn to work under pressure and with little money, which then surely fits you and prepares you for a considerable amount of responsibility, but it is hard to work peacefully with the right earning. You need a lot of patience and enthusiasm. I’m not saying that things do not come, but compared to what I see is happening outside Italy, here everything seems more difficult. There is so much pre-production (that I like much) for example and little traditional animation 🙁 that phase that you study for and then that you don’t meet perhaps for years. But I’m positive and I keep my fingers crossed because this field may have increasing recognition. Its born from a passion but it is a job as much as others. To finish, animation degree lets you learn about all the phases of a production, so the possibilities you have to get into the animation world are lots, from pre to post production. So get involved! the more we are, the more we win! 🙂
