Pierre Perifel

Pierre Perifel is a French animator and director, best known for his work at DreamWorks Animation and for his award-winning short films Bilby and Le Building. He is an alumnus of Gobelins, l'Ecole de l'image.

Pierre Perifel
Born	Lyon, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Animator, director
Years active	2005-present

Early life and education

Perifel was born in Lyon, France.[1] His passion for animation began in high school. In his third year of attending the École Émile-Cohl art school, he applied to Gobelins, l'École de l'image and was accepted.[2]

In 2004, Perifel created the short student film A Swell Plan,[3] and collaborated with classmates Xavier Ramonède, Jun Frederic Violet, and Rémi Zaarour on a second short film, Festival Qualité.[4][5] He graduated from Gobelins in 2005.[1][6] For his thesis film, Le Building, he reteamed with Ramonède and Zaarour, and also worked with Marco Nguyen and Olivier Staphylas. The film uses a combination of 2D and 3D animation.[7] Le Building screened at numerous international film festivals and won several awards,[6][8][9][10][11] including Best Undergraduate Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.[10]

Career

The earliest films of Perifel's career include Curious George, Nocturna, Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure and The Illusionist.[2] The same year as his graduation from Gobelins (2005), Perifel served as a supervising animator on the French short film Imago, which was directed by Cédric Babouche. Imago afforded Perifel the opportunity to work with Ramonède again.[12]

Perifel moved to the United States in 2008[1][6] and began his career at DreamWorks Animation doing character animation on the 2D short film, Secrets of the Furious Five, for which he won an Annie Award.[1][13][14] Following that, Perifel transitioned to CGI, working on Monsters vs. Aliens for about two months. He then joined onto Shrek Forever After.[2] He returned to 2D animation with a few sequences in Kung Fu Panda 2.[2][15] On that film, he also served as lead animator for the character Lord Shen. Perifel has said that he "was in charge of [the character]", even though he "didn't have a team of animators".[2]

Perifel was officially promoted to supervising animator on Rise of the Guardians[2] leading the team responsible for the character North.[16] Both Kung Fu Panda 2 and Rise of the Guardians earned Perifel Annie Award nominations.[1][13][17]

Perifel's subsequently was appointed Head of Animation on several films including Monkeys of Mumbai and Larrikins that never got to see the light of day for various reasons.

In November 2017, it was announced that Perifel has been developing an untitled short film with Liron Topaz and JP Sans. The film was selected through the DreamWorks Shorts program, which was set up by Chris DeFaria, after he became president of the DreamWorks Animation Film Group in January 2017. Bilby opened at the closing ceremony of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2018. It screened in many festivals and won the Jury Choice Award at Siggraph 2018.

Perifel is currently a co-director at DreamWorks Animation and making his feature directorial debut, directing the animated feature film adaptation of the original Aaron Blabey/Scholastic book series, The Bad Guys, which was set to be released on September 17, 2021 by Universal Pictures.

References

1. UQAC staff (March 13, 2012). "David Hubert and Pierre Perifel (DreamWorks) are guest masters for ELITE 2012". nad.ca. Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2017.
2. Pierre Perifel (November 27, 2012). "Rise of an animator: Pierre Perifel reveals secrets of the Guardians". Animated Views (Online). Interviewed by Jérémie Noyer. Retrieved July 10, 2017.
3. "Anima Mundi 2005" (Press release) (in Portuguese and English). São Paulo: Anima Mundi. p. 80. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
4. Marc Aguesse. "Festival qualité (2004)". Catsuka. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
5. Xavier Ramonède (April 15, 2009). "Le Building and Festival Qualité". Sushixav.blogspot.com. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
6. "Chilemonos" (Press release) (in Spanish). Santiago: Chilemonos International Animation Festival. p. 9. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
7. Stash staff (December 4, 2005). ""Le Building" - Student Film". Stash DVD Magazine. No. 15. San Antonio, Texas: Stash Media. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
8. Marco Nguyen, Pierre Perifel, Xavier Ramonède, Olivier Staphylas, and Rémi Zaarour. "Le Building - News, pg. 1". le-building.com. Retrieved August 21, 2016.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
9. Leo Barraclough (July 26, 2006). "Toons Catch Continental Drift". Variety. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
10. Eric Homan (September 26, 2006). "Talk to the Snail: OIAF Category E – Student Animation Competition". Frederator Studios. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
11. Olivier Staphylas. "Olivier Staphylas - Bio". staphylas.com. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
12. Imago - Credits. Sacrebleu Productions and La Boîte Productions. 2005.
13. David Hubert, Jason Ryan, Pierre Perifel (March 3, 2013). iAnimate interview Pierre Périfel - part 3 (video). iAnimate. Event occurs at 2:09-2:23. Retrieved January 1, 2017.
14. Peter Debruge (January 30, 2009). "'Kung Fu Panda' rules Annie Awards". Variety. Retrieved July 10, 2017.
15. David Hubert, Jason Ryan, Pierre Perifel (March 3, 2013). iAnimate interview Pierre Périfel - part 3 (video). iAnimate. Event occurs at 2:02-2:11. Retrieved January 1, 2017.
16. David Hubert, Jason Ryan, Pierre Perifel (March 3, 2013). iAnimate interview Pierre Périfel - part 2 (video). iAnimate. Event occurs at 0:59-1:14. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
17. Carolyn Giardina (February 2, 2013). "'Wreck-It Ralph' Wins Five Annie Awards Including Best Animated Feature". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 10, 2017.

External links

• Pierre Perifel on IMDb
• Pierre Perifel on Vimeo